Progress in Researches on Biodegradable Starch-Based Materials

As one type of environment-friendly polymer, biodegradable starch-based materials have been widely explored in recent years and considered one of the most promising plastics in the future. Currently, either synthetic biodegradable aliphatic polyesters or certain natural polymers are usually blended with thermoplastic starch to enhance hydrophobicity and service performance of starch-based materials. The main deficiency lies in the low compatibility between starch and polyester phases. Therefore amphiphilic compatibilizers, such as hydroxyl functioned polyesters, need to be developed in the future. Moreover, multi-phase blending systems including two or more polyester phases are also supposed to be designed.