However, biopolymers present relatively poor mechanical
and barrier properties, which currently limit their
industrial use. The problems associated with biopolymers
are 3-fold: performance, processing, and cost. Although
these factors are somewhat interrelated, problems due
to “performance and processing” are common to all
biodegradable polymers in spite of their origin.
In particular, brittleness, low heat distortion temperature,
high gas and vapor permeability, poor resistance to protracted
processing operations have strongly limited their
applications