Background:Plastics are a rapidly increasing component of municipal solid waste as they do not decompose easily and thus causes an adverse effect to the surroundings. To overcome this, the use of bioplastics as packaging material particularly in the food industry isincreasing. Currently, an innovative, eco-compatible and cost-effective protocol has been developed to synthesize a bio-based composite film using gelatin (G) loaded with pectin (P) and banana peel extract (BPE), and it was subsequently assessed for its physical and mechanical properties.Methods:The casting solution procedure was used to produce the biodegradable food packaging films with different blends: G, G + P and G + P + BPE. Glycerol was used as a plasticizer. The physical tests included thickness, film moisture, swelling index and solubility. The mechanical tests were elongation at break, young’s modulus and tensile strength.Results:The final G + P + BPE composite film became thicker (0.145 mm as compared to 0.084 mm). The moisture content increased to 26.19 % while the solubility in water decreased (95.11% to 55.77% respectively) and swelling index lowered to 53.21% from 67.66%. Theelongation at break was suppressed to 8.215%, however the young’s modulus and tensile strength appeared high 74.52 MPa and 14.87 N/mm2 respectively.Conclusion:The acquired results has shown the blended film has the potential to be used as a bioactive edible packaging material to maintain the viability of packaged food.
Wajid et al. (Thu,) studied this question.