Chitosan - Polyvinyl Alcohol based Biopolymer Films

With the aim of offsetting the disadvantages of chitosan as a natural polymer and to favor some of its advantages, this study evaluates a new material from the mixture of chitosan and polyvinyl alcohol (PVOH) for the application of flexible packaging. Nevertheless, due to the low availability of chitosan in Colombia, chitin was extracted from shrimp shells and it was processed later to obtain chitosan. In the first stage, chitosan was obtained to a degree of deacetylation of 77.76 %. Subsequently, the formulation from the mix of chitosan and PVOH was established and the films were prepared with the method of Solution Casting. The films were then subject to a tensile strength test, whose results allowed to establish that the new biopolymer is not suitable for applications such as flexible packaging in the food industry. Furthermore, the films with a PVOH percentages of 20 % and 80 % were tested using differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) and oxygen permeability, whose results allowed again to establish that these formulations are processable at high temperatures, but not suitable as barrier polymer.