Design of eco-friendly packaging based in gelatin and yerba mate industrial waste molded by thermo-compression

LAZSESKI, LUZ; DELADINO LORENA; RIVERO SANDRA

CABA

Congreso; WCCE11 - 11TH WORLD CONGRESS OF CHEMICAL ENGINEERING; 2023

The use of industrial by-products such as yerba mate powder (YMP) as raw material for the development of composite films, is emerging as a strategy to reduce the growing environmental problem and to increase the added value of this type of resource.The present work was focused on the development of composite films based on gelatin and YMP by thermo-compression with by-product concentration, and to study their physico-chemical, barrier, mechanical, and structural properties.The inclusion of YMP increased the opacity and the UV-visible barrier properties of the materials, and the transparency decreased, being 0,69 and 1,82 nm mm-1 for control gelatin films and the composite with 10% w/w of YMP, respectively. Matrix swelling decreased with the YMP concentration, showing a diminution of 30% in films with 10% YMP compared to the gelatin matrix, while solubility increased with YMP inclusion. The contact angle showed average values of 75o, regardless of the YMP concentration studied. Water vapor permeability (WVP) of the films increased with YMP content up to 5% w/w, but higher concentrations induced a drop of WVP. Mechanical profiles showed a decrease in the tensile strength with YMP incorporation with the increase in the elongation of the matrix from 115 to 158% for 0 and 10% w/w of YMP, respectively. ATR-FTIR analysis confirmed the presence of YMP in gelatin-based materials due to the peak at 1735 cm-1 ascribed to functional groups of hemicellulose. The inclusion of this industrial by-product improved the techno-functional properties of the gelatin-based materials and enabled the obtention of functionalized composite films.