In recent decades, the growing environmental awareness has
encouraged the development of biodegradable materials from
renewable resources to replace conventional non-biodegradable
materials in many applications. Among them, polysaccharides
such as starches offer several advantages for the replacement of
synthetic polymers in plastics industries due to their low cost,
non-toxicity, biodegradability and availability (Fajardo et al., 2010;
Simkovic, 2013). Corn has been the main source of starch commercially
available. Other minor sources include rice, wheat, potato
and cassava and starchy foods such as yams, peas and lentils
(Bergthaller, 2005).
Starch is composed of amylose and amylopectin with relative
amounts of each component varying according to its plant
source As an example, cornstarch has about 28 wt.% amylose as
compared to cassava starch with 17 wt.%. Film-forming, barrier
and mechanical properties, as well as processing conditions, are
dependent on amylose to amylopectin ratio. In general, an increasing
amount of amylose improves the abovementioned propertiesStarch-based films, however, are brittle and hydrophilic, therefore
limiting their processing and application. In order to overcome
these drawbacks, starch can be mixed with various synthetic and
natural polymers. These approaches are: multilayer structures with
aliphatic polyesters