Biodegradable Packaging Film Production Using Purple Flour and Tapioca Starch

Abstract

In recent years, the excessive use of plastic packaging materials has increased environmental concerns. Petroleum-based packaging causes serious environmental problems both. To overcome these environmental problems, environmentally friendly and biodegradable packaging materials have been developed. Many natural polymeric materials can be used to produce biodegradable packaging materials. Among these polymers, flour and starch are the most preferred materials due to their low cost and abundance. In this study, purple flour and tapioca starch were used at percentages of 2% and 3% of the film solutions. The moisture content, moisture uptake, swelling index, surface pH and pH values of all the produced films were determined. The moisture uptake capacities of films with low moisture contents were high as expected. The highest moisture uptake was found as 55.5% for the film produced with purple flour that used at 2%. Surface pH and pH values determined after dissolution of the films were found to be close to neutral values. Swelling capacity values, which are a parameter indicating the stability of the films, were found to be very high in all films produced with flour and starch. The results showed that the films produced in experimental studies can be used as packaging materials by adding some features to the films.