Increase in the physical performance of nanostructured starch/chitosan blends with montmorillonite

In this research, the effect of montmorillonite nanoparticles (Mt) filling polymer blends (PB) of starch/chitosan at concentrations of (0.5 and 1.0) g of Mt/100 g of PB was investigated. The Mt was dispersed at a rotational frequency of 2500 rpm in a cold bath at 0 °C, allowing to obtain nanoparticles with an average size of (315 ± 14) nm. On the one hand, the films presented an increase of 72.4% in the tensile strength as a function of the increase in the concentration of chitosan. Consequently, the composites showed an increase of 85.6% due to the increase in chitosan and the Mt presence. In addition, the composites had an improvement of 33.7% in the water vapor barrier explained by the lower permeability index in function to the higher clay nanoparticle concentration. On another hand, the yellowness characteristic color was evident with the increase of chitosan concentration. The biodegradable PB: Mt films produced in this research have a high potential for industrial application and can be used as food package materials.