Preparation And Characterization Of Chitosan And Chitosan/corn Starch Based Biodegradable Film Reinforced With Refined Bamboo Cellulose Powder

Chitosan and cornstarch are widely used as natural biopolymer because of their semi crystalline structure,good film forming properties,and easy availability.Films made from chitosan and cornstarches have huge applications in industry,especially in the food industry as active food packaging.This work introduced reinforcing material refined bamboo cellulose powder(RBCP)prepared from bamboo fibre into chitosan and chitosan/corstarch films to improve the physical,mechanical and other properties of the composite film.As a natural plant,bamboo is vastly studied due to its inexpensive,high strength and availability.Moreover,special concern placed on its natural antibacterial agent Bamboo kun.Different percentage of RBCP solution was added to the CS and CS/Corm.S solution as reinforcement material and glycerol was added as plasticizer.Prepared CS-RBCP and CS/Corm.S-RBCP films were observed by FT-IR spectroscopy to observe its absorption bands responsible for their formation;X-ray Diffraction(XRD)was conducted to observe the crystallinity and amorphous zone.Homogeneous and heterogeneous surface of the RBCP incorporated films before biodegradation and after biodegradation(20 days)were observed by scanning electron microscopy(SEM),SEM micrographs of the films after they were buried in the soil showed cracking and fissure surface because of breaking down of the intermolecular bonds,which proves the biodegradability properties.However,the tensile strength increased from 2.91 Mpa to 4.172 Mpa for CS-RBCP films and from 3.556 Mpa to 5.013 Mpa for CS/Corn.S-RBCP films respectively with the increasing of reinforcing RBCP materials from 0.00 to 7.00%.In the meanwhile,application of the films as storage material for red grapes was also studied and satisfactory result was obtained.CS-RBCP and CS/Corn.S-RBCP films showed better result as compared with plastic,pure chitosan and pure chitosan/cornstarch films.Incorporation of RBCP improves the mechanical and physical properties of chitosan and chitosan/cornstarch films,moreover the films showed good potential to be used as active packaging material to store red grape fruits and increase the shelf life.