Active Packaging Using Orange Oil Incorporated into PBAT Biodegradable Films

Abstract

The use of essential oils as additives to biodegradable polymers has been widely investigated for application in active packaging with a focus on food preservation. The purpose of this article is to observe the changes caused by orange oil in different concentrations (5, 10 and 15 %), when incorporated into thin PBAT films. The results showed that the rheological behavior of PBAT did not change with the addition of 5% oil, the torque remained constant. The oil did not significantly alter the Tm of all the films, remained close to pure PBAT (117.91 °C), but an addition of 5% oil increased Tc of approximately 2.6 °C (4%). TGA maintained degradation temperature for the samples with initial degradation temperature (T0) of approximately 388 °C and maximum degradation temperature of 429.25 °C. Stress at break, Elastic modulus and Specific deformation decreased with increasing oil content. Given this, we concluded that the oil does not alter the thermal properties of PBAT observed in TGA, but making it more flexible and fragile by acting as a plasticizer in the PBAT structure.