2022 Annual Meeting
Material Properties of Biodegradable Polysaccharide Packaging for Applications in the Food Industry
Designed for convenience rather than sustainability, disposable packaging, such as plastic wrap, utilized in the food industry generates millions of tons of municipal solid waste annually and has detrimental effects on aquatic ecosystems. Proteins, lipids, and polysaccharides can be used as alternative materials to create packaging, with polysaccharides considered a material of particular interest given the fact that they come from an abundant range of natural and renewable sources, are relatively inexpensive, and can be processed easily. This research seeks to explore the effects of polysaccharide type, polysaccharide concentration, and plasticizer concentration on mechanical properties (including Youngâs Modulus, maximum tensile strength, and elongation at break) and optical properties (including transparency) of films made from multiple types of polysaccharides, including those derived from seaweed (sodium alginate), animals (chitosan), microorganisms (xanthan gum), and plants (potato starch).