Study on biodegradation behaviour of starch nanocomposites with chitosan-modified bentonite as fillers

MANSILLA, A.Y.; MERINO, D.; ALVAREZ, V.A.; CASALONGUÉ, C.A.

Mar del plata

Congreso; XVI SIMPOSIO LATINOAMERICANO DE POLÍMEROS Y XIV CONGRESO IBEROAMERICANO DE POLÍMEROS; 2018

The development of biodegradable agricultural mulchfilms is highly attractive and necessary in order toreplace the conventional polyethylene (PE) mulchfilms. The latter, are degradable in at least 100 years,time that exceeds their life use1. The use of PE mulchfilms offers several advantages to farmers: theyproduce an increase in yields and accelerate cropharvesting time by keeping proper soil moisture andraising soil temperature2. However, the maindisadvantages of their use are the economic costs thatimply their collection after harvesting and the disposalof great amounts of agrochemically-polluted PE3. Thisway, there is a current need for developingbiodegradable mulch films that keep the advantages ofthose manufactured with polyethylene but offeringearlier biodegradation. In this context, new starchbasedformulations were proposed and analysed in ourprevious work4. Current presentation is focused on thestudy of the process of biodegradation ofenvironmentally friendly nanocomposites based onnative and oxidized corn starch and natural andchitosan modified nanoclays buried in soil. Theprogress in the biodegradation process was followedgravimetrically, measuring the water adsorption andthe weight loss as a function of the degradation time.Evolution of chemical composition and microbial attackduring the experiment were followed by Fouriertransform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR),thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) and scanningelectron microscopy (SEM).