Technological watch

In this present study the biodegradable PLA/PBAT blend incorporated cardanol oil (CO) along with various nanoparticles (Nps) was fabricated by film casting technique. The primary goal of this work was to address and solve the incompatibility problem that exists between PLA and PBAT blending by introducing green chemical based natural additive cardanol oil as compatibilizer in PLA/PBAT biodegradable polymer blend. The packaging films were developed using various formulations of PLA/PBAT (90/10) biopolymer blend added with cardanol oil as compatibilizing agent and 1wt.% of ZnO, TiO2, and SiO2 as nanofiller. All of the developed PLA/PBAT blended biodegradable films were subjected to various characterizations such as fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, surface and inner morphology, X-ray diffraction, mechanical, thermal degradation, optical, surface hydrophobicity and antibacterial behaviour. The mechanical performance of the prepared film revealed that incorporating 1wt.% NPs (ZnO, TiO2, and SiO2) along with 5wt.% cardanol oil into the composite film improves tensile strength and percentage of elongation. The PLA/PBAT blended film containing both NPs and cardanol oil has a lower OTR and WVTR value and indicating that the flexible film has good barrier properties. The presence of both cardanol oil and NPs in the PLA/PBAT improved the optical properties and surface hydrophobicity. Finally, based on the experimental results obtained in this study, it is inferred that the PLA/PBAT/NPs/CO biodegradable films have high potential for the use in food packaging applications due to their improved packaging performances such as film flexibility, less water permeability, heat withstand ability, less water absorptiveness and good antimicrobial properties.