Synthesis and Characterization of Chitosan-Silver Nanocomposite Film

Abstract

Chitosan is termed as one of the useful carbohydrate oligosaccharides derived from chitin, which can be used to improve film packaging by hybridizing with silver due to their advantages of flexibility, easy scale up and low cost methods. Design of packaging material with non-toxic property becomes key issue. The objective of this work is to synthesize and characterize chitosan-silver nanocomposite film for effective packaging. The nanocomposite was synthesized using in-situ, co-mixing chemical method and air drying method. The morphology integrity of the nanohybrid was confirmed using UV-Visible Spectrophotometer, Transmission Electron Microscope (TEM) and X-ray Diffraction (XRD). TEM analysis revealed the cap shaped spherical morphology with no agglomeration and uniform size distribution of the nanoparticles within the range of 20.00 nm. UV-visible analysis showed Plasmon resonance band at 275 nm and 435 nm indicating the presence of chitosan and silver with no observable peak and an increase in intensity of chitozan. XRD confirmed the order and crystalline peak located at 2θ = 35ᵒ, 64ᵒ and 77ᵒwhich have been keenly indexed as face centred cubic Silver nanocrystals.Thus, the nanocomposite film produced serves as an effective packaging material.