These results are in good agreement with those above reported, obtained using thermogravimetric and spectroscopic techniques. The reductions in Mv can explain the formation of compounds with lower thermal stability, observed in the TGA curves ( Fig. 5). The hydrolysis of the PC molecules can explain the appearance of phenolic compounds, which are responsible for the new absorption band centred at 287 nm in the UV spectra of the nanocomposites ( Fig. 8). These phenolic compounds can be also responsible, at least in part, for the increased emission at 320 nm observed in the fluorescence spectra ( Fig. 7).