EFFECT OF ALUMINUM OXIDE ON THE FUNCTIONAL PROPERTIES OF CHITOSAN FILMS

Chitosan is the one of the most abundant naturally occurring polymer in the world and has applications in a lot of different fields, including flexible packaging films. Aluminum oxide in the form of nanoparticle have good mechanical strength, barrier, thermal and antimicrobial properties which, when added to a polymer, can improve its properties significantly and increase its applications considerably. This research attempts to develop a biodegradable film with chitosan added with aluminum oxide and study its effect on the functional properties of the chitosan film. The functional properties taken into consideration were tensile strength, % elongation at break, water vapor permeability (WVP), oxygen permeability (OP), antimicrobial and thermal properties. There can be potential novel applications in packaging if these composite films have improved requisite properties. The oxygen permeability of the films was not affected after adding aluminum oxide and decreased only by 6% after adding 2% Al2O3. On other hand, the water vapor permeability values increased significantly (p<0.05) by around 30% after adding 2% Al2O3, which is not desired. The tensile strength decreased from 40 MPa to 36 MPa and the % elongation at break reduced significantly (p<0.05) from 98% to 83%. There was no change observed in the thermal properties of the films, and there was no inhibition zone seen when tested for its antimicrobial properties after the addition of aluminum oxide. These results suggest that the properties of this composite material formed using chitosan with aluminum oxide were not affected in some aspects such as tensile strength and oxygen barrier property; and additional work is required to conclude the hypothesis of generating a composite chitosan film with aluminum oxide as nanoparticles for improved properties.