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Communication Dans Un Congrès Année : 2018

Bringing new function to packaging materials by agricultural byproducts

Résumé

The packaging sector is the largest user for polymer materials because of their very interesting technological features. Polymers are lightweighted, quite convenient to process into packages with specific design, and mechanically resistant. The large use of those materials caused however environmental problems, mostly linked to persistent pollution in natural habitats and use of fossil resources. The development of biodegradable and biobased polymers is one of the answers to these questions. Furthermore, the use of renewable resources allows to step towards circular economy in bringing new value and applications to agricultural (by)products. Agriculture and food industry will not only be users but become suppliers for polymer materials. Academic research has developed already important expertise in the screening and use of agricultural (by)products for increasing function in polymer materials. Indeed, new biodegradable and biobased resins lack sometimes technical properties for successful replacement of existing materials. This is a challenge to rise to and to invent novel strategies for building the desired function by the creation of original assemblies and morphologies. Furthermore, constraints such as availability, ecological impact and security of materials need to be respected. Within this framework, examples will be discussed concerning the development of novel packaging materials based on polylactide (PLA) by the use of agricultural byproducts. PLA is today one of the most produced biodegradable and biobased polymers and one of its application fields is food packaging and service ware. PLA is an admitted Food Contact Material (FCM) in the European and North-American Legislations. It is generally formulated with some technological adjuvants, but at moderate level. Antioxidants and lubrication agents were evidenced.1-3 Furhtermore, degradation products can be formed during polymer processing and usage. Salazar et al.1 showed that the pathway of thermo-hydrolysis was mainly responsible for the formation of degradation products. PLA oligomers and lactic acid are among the most important molecules. PLA is efficient in maintaining food quality because of its high resistance to fatty food and barrier to aroma compounds.4 It is however noteworthy that PLA has high affinity to aromatic molecules, which induce plasticizing and induced crystallization already at very low activity.5 One of the drawbacks of PLA for food packaging is its relatively low ductility. There is a need for the development of biodegradable and biobased adjuvants, either acting as plasticizers or as impact modifiers. Those adjuvants can be obtained from agricultural byproducts and this approach has already received large academic and industrial research interest. Ruellan et al.6, 7 showed for example that the use of byproducts of the vegetal oil industry allows remarkable increase of PLA ductility. Among the byproducts of this industry are deodorizer distillates, which are mixtures of free fatty acids, glycerols and insaponifiable compounds. Used at inclusion percentages between 15 and 20 %, they increase the elongation at break of PLA from initially 5 % to approximately 180 %. The glass transition of PLA is maintained higher than room temperature.6 Overall migration tests at laboratory scale showed compliance with European legislation limits. The materials were fully biodegradable.7 Preliminary Life Cycle Analysis showed an advantage of using such byproducts over petrochemical plasticizers. A second limitation of PLA in many applications is its moderate barrier properties to gas and organic or water vapor. Indeed PLA has better O2 barrier properties than polyolefins, but approximately 10 times lower barrier properties compared to PET. The use of nanocomposites is one of the promising routes towards better barrier properties. Among the renewable resources, nanocellulose has attracted great interest, as it is among the rare nanoparticles being fully organic and biodegradable. Furthermore, the can be obtained from different byproducts of agriculture and food industry. An example was byproducts of the transformation of Algarve.8 The polar surface of nanocellulose crystals is however little compatible with PLA. Surface modification strategies need to be developed to be able to produced nanocomposites with homogenously dispersed nanofillers.9 Espino et al.10, 11 developed a in situ grafting technique without solvent based on the principles of green chemistry. This compatibilisation allowed the fabrication of PLA nanocomposites with homogenous dispersion of cellulose nanocrystals. The surface of the nanocelluloses was furthermore designed to be a specific trap for aromatic molecules.12 Due to the shape factor of the cellulose, no gains in O2 barrier properties were obtained, but the water vapor transport rate of those materials was decreased compared to materials containing non-modified cellulose. Interestingly, the nanocellulose surface trapped aromatic molecules, which resulted in an important decrease of the organic vapor transport rate inside the material.13 This decrease could be attributed to changes in the non-Fickian diffusion mechanisms. This knowledge can be used to better design interface properties in nanocomposites with regards to increasing barrier properties. As a conclusion, these examples show the potential of the development of functional additives for packaging polymers starting for byproducts of the agriculture and food industry. This approach holds high potential for the transition of the manufacturing industry towards increased use of renewable resources and for novel value-added productions coming from agriculture and food industry. References 1.Salazar, R.; Domenek, S.; Plessis, C.; Ducruet, V., Quantitative determination of volatile organic compounds formed during Polylactide processing by MHS-SPME. Polym. Degrad. Stab. 2017, 136, 80-88. 2.Gratia, A.; Merlet, D.; Ducruet, V.; Lyathaud, C., A comprehensive NMR methodology to assess the composition of biobased and biodegradable polymers in contact with food. Analytica Chimica Acta 2015, 853, 477-485. 3.Lalanne, A.; Espino Perez, E.; Salazar, R.; Domenek, S.; Ducruet, V., Identification of potential migrants in Poly(lactic acid) packagings. Ital. J. Food Sci. 2010, 63-67. 4.Salazar, R.; Domenek, S.; Ducruet, V., Interactions of flavoured oil in-water emulsions with polylactide. Food Chem. 2014, 148, (0), 138-146. 5.Salazar, R.; Domenek, S.; Courgneau, C.; Ducruet, V., Plasticization of poly(lactide) by sorption of volatile organic compounds at low concentration. Polym. Degrad. Stab. 2012, 97, (10), 1871-1880. 6.Ruellan, A.; Gratia, A.; Guinault, A.; Chollet, G.; Sollogoub, C.; Domenek, S.; Ducruet, V., Bioproducts of oil industry as toughnening agents of polylactide. In Biopol 2015 - 5th International Conference on Biodegradable Polymers San Sebastian, Spain, 2015. 7.Ruellan, A.; Ducruet, V.; Gratia, A.; Saelices Jimenez, L.; Guinault, A.; Sollogoub, C.; Chollet, G.; Domenek, S., Palm oil deodorizer distillate as toughening agent in polylactide packaging films. Polym. Int. 2016, 65, (6), 683-690. 8.Espino, E.; Cakir, M.; Domenek, S.; Román-Gutiérrez, A. D.; Belgacem, N.; Bras, J., Isolation and characterization of cellulose nanocrystals from industrial by-products of Agave tequilana and barley. Ind. Crops Prod. 2014, 62, 552-559. 9.Espino-Perez, E.; Bras, J.; Ducruet, V.; Guinault, A.; Dufresne, A.; Domenek, S., Influence of chemical surface modification of cellulose nanowhiskers on thermal, mechanical, and barrier properties of poly(lactide) based bionanocomposites. Eur. Polym. J. 2013, 49, (10), 3144-3154. 10.Espino-Perez, E.; Domenek, S.; Belgacem, N.; Sillard, C.; Bras, J., Green Process for Chemical Functionalization of Nanocellulose with Carboxylic Acids. Biomacromolecules 2014, 15, (12), 5441-4560. 11.Espino-Perez, E.; Gilbert, R. G.; Domenek, S.; Brochier-Salon, M. C.; Belgacem, M. N.; Bras, J., Nanocomposites with functionalised polysaccharide nanocrystals through aqueous free radical polymerisation promoted by ozonolysis. Carbohydrate polymers 2016, 135, 256-266. 12.Espino-Perez, E.; Bras, J.; Almeida, G.; Relkin, P.; Belgacem, N.; Plessis, C.; Domenek, S., Cellulose nanocrystal surface functionalization for the controlled sorption of water and organic vapours. Cellulose 2016, 23, (5), 2955-2970. 13.Espino-Pérez, E.; Bras, J.; Almeida, G.; Plessis, C.; Belgacem, N.; Perré, P.; Domenek, S., Designed cellulose nanocrystal surface properties for improving barrier properties in polylactide nanocomposites. Carbohydrate Polymers 2018, 183, 267-277.
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hal-03918763 , version 1 (02-01-2023)

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  • HAL Id : hal-03918763 , version 1

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Sandra Domenek. Bringing new function to packaging materials by agricultural byproducts. International Congress of Biotechnology and Biodiversity, Oct 2018, Guyaquil, Ecuador. ⟨hal-03918763⟩
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