Production of Biodegradable Edible Films from Tragacanth Gum and Determination of Their Physical and Mechanical Properties

Abstract

Due to the disadvantages of synthetic packaging materials such as migration into food, polluting the environment, difficult recovery, high costs of raw materials and production, natural biopolymers have recently been paid more attention as alternatives to the petroleum-derived plastics for packaging. The aim of this study was producing biodegradable edible films based on native tragacanth from Iran and determining their physical and mechanical properties. Also, the effects of different percentages of glycerol as a plasticizer (30%, 40% and 50%) on the films properties were investigated. According to the results, tragacanth based films showed appropriate mechanical properties and high transparency. Different percentage of glycerol did not affect the physical properties of the samples, but made some changes in mechanical properties. Among all treatments, films with 30% glycerol showed higher tensile strength in comparison to the other samples. Also, films with 50% glycerol showed more %E and lower stiffness. Because of high solubility of tragacanth films, they cannot be used in film production alone, but it is an appropriate candidate for composite films.

Keywords

• biodegradable
• edible film
• tragacanth