Ruckmani Kandasamy
Anna University (BIT Campus), India
Title: Evaluation of silver nanoparticles incorporated starch/gum based nano-film for food packaging
Biography
Biography: Ruckmani Kandasamy
Abstract
Plastic is easily available, inexpensive and the common packaging material used in food industry. The major obstacles associated with the usage of plastics are non-degradable, polluting soil and ultimately toxic to the environment. The main objective this work is to develop a biodegradable film based on tapioca starch and guar gum embedded with silver nanoparticles (AgNPs). The preparation process was done by electrospinning method and the final product was characterized with different physicochemical techniques. Green synthesis of AgNPs were successfully carried out using the fruit extract of Limonia acidissima, it act as both reducing and capping agent for stabilization of synthesized AgNPs. By optimizing, the effective preparation (in terms of size) of AgNPs were found at the 100 µl concentration of the extract with the constant volume of 1 mM AgNO3 solution and the resultant AgNPs were characterized using different methods such as UV-visible spectrophotometer, FTIR, TEM, EDAX analysis, Particle size and Zeta potential measurement techniques and zebra fish in vivo toxicity studies. Response surface methodology was performed to investigate the effect of process variables (TS, GG and GLY) on tensile strength (TS), transparency (TR), solubility (SOL) and thickness (THI) of the film. Electrospinning was performed at the optimized film forming solution and their morphology, chemical structure was observed with the TEM and FTIR respectively. The synthesised nano-film exhibited an effective antimicrobial activity against both gram positive and negative bacteria. Our studies concluded that the developed nano-film could be act as a potential non-toxic packing material in food industry.