Biodegradable nanocomposite film production from orange peels and utilization as food packaging

In this thesis, it is aimed to produce a biodegradable nanocomposite packaging film obtained from orange peels as an alternative to synthetic packaging films in terms of environmental and quality aspects.The thesis comprises of four stages, ?Material Preparation for Biodegradable Nanocomposite Film?, ?Production of Biodegradable Nanocomposite Film?, ?Improvement of Biodegradable Nanocomposite Film through Exfoliation and Characterization? and ?Utilization Assessment of Biodegradable Nanocomposite Films by Comparing with Synthetic Food Packaging Film?. At the first stage, pectin jelly was extracted from waste orange peels, neat starch was modified by hydroxypropylation followed by crosslinking and Na-MMT was modified with different rates of cationic surfactant. At the second stage, pectin jelly based mixtures including starch and clay were prepared by Taguchi experimental design method and formed into film by using twin screw extruder and film forming machine. The films with uniform shape were analyzed with respect to creep recovery and also kept in room conditions for one month. According to the results of these processes an optimum mixture was determined. At the third stage, the film that was determined as an optimum was exfoliated with cellulose acetate phthalate (CAP) to improve its water resistance. At the fourth stage, it was focused on the utilization of films as a packaging film. For that reason, creep recovery, oxygen transmission, water vapor transmission, effect on mycotoxins and biodegaradability analysis were performed on these films comparatively with a commercial stretch film.At the end of the thesis, it was seen that the produced optimum film contains 90% weigh percent 15% modified starch and 0.5% weigh percent Na-MMT. It was suggested that CAP exfoliation improves water resistance with a remarkable effect on mycotoxin prevention. Barrier properties of the films were found good in terms of oxygen in spite of they were poor for water vapor. The films showed 78-99.96% biodegradability within two weeks.