High Strength Hemicellulose-Based Nanocomposite Film for Food Packaging Applications

Hemicelluloses are abundant natural polysaccharides with huge availability and potential for biomaterials due to their biocompatibility and biodegradability. But their utilization in packaging is greatly limited by their intractability (hygroscopic and poor mechanical properties). In this work, the quaternized hemicelluloses (QH) were successfully prepared to increase the value of hemicelluloses. The objective of this work was the intercalation of different ratios of cationic biopolymer chitosan (CS) and QH in montmorillonite (MMT), providing compact and robust nanocomposite films with nacre-like structure and multifunctional characteristics. This study revealed some details in the relationships between structure (multilayered structure) and properties (tensile strength and thermal property). It was also found that the tensile strengths of films QH-MMT-CS (F0.05 and F0.08) were 52.7 and 57.8 MPa, respectively, which suggested that the addition of CS was supposed to contribute to mechanical properties due to the strong electrostatic interactions and the enhanced hydrogen bonding. The thermal stability of nanocomposite films, the oxygen permeability, and water vapor permeability had been improved due to the small amount of CS. These observations create an important foundation in the experimental design of the high-performance nanocomposite materials.