Biopolymer-based Lightweight Materials for Packaging Applications

This chapter offers an overview of the biopolymer-based lightweight materials with respect to their potential for packaging applications. The biopolymer-based materials have garnered increasing attention to packaging market due to the concerns from both environmental and economical perspectives of traditional petroleum based polymers in recent years. The largely use of these traditional synthetic polymers has already resulted in a serious ecological problems. Recently, the biopolymers found increasingly in applications such as food, pharmaceutical, and consumer goods packaging. They are biodegradable and especially compostable due to the origin from renewable resources. In this review, the classification of biopolymers is introduced according to their production methods or resources of materials. Then the advantages and challenges of these biopolymers over conventional synthetic polymers were compared. Several important biopolymers such as polylactic acid (PLA), starch and cellulose were discussed in details. The chemical structures, mechanical properties, thermal properties, and recycling of these biopolymers were summarized. In the second part of this review, biofibers and biocomposites are also discussed since they are important biomaterials for packaging applications.