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Natural Polymeric Materials: A Solution to Plastic Pollution from the Agro-Food Sector

Conventional petroleum-derived plastics represent a serious problem for global pollution because, when discarded in the environment, are believed to remain for hundreds of years. In order to reduce dependence on fossil resources, bioplastic materials are being proposed as safer alternatives. Bioplas...

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Autores principales: Acquavia, Maria Assunta, Pascale, Raffaella, Martelli, Giuseppe, Bondoni, Marcella, Bianco, Giuliana
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7796273/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33406618
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/polym13010158
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author Acquavia, Maria Assunta
Pascale, Raffaella
Martelli, Giuseppe
Bondoni, Marcella
Bianco, Giuliana
author_facet Acquavia, Maria Assunta
Pascale, Raffaella
Martelli, Giuseppe
Bondoni, Marcella
Bianco, Giuliana
author_sort Acquavia, Maria Assunta
collection PubMed
description Conventional petroleum-derived plastics represent a serious problem for global pollution because, when discarded in the environment, are believed to remain for hundreds of years. In order to reduce dependence on fossil resources, bioplastic materials are being proposed as safer alternatives. Bioplastics are bio-based and/or biodegradable materials, typically derived from renewable sources. Food waste as feedstock represents one of the recent applications in the research field of bioplastics production. To date, several food wastes have been used as raw materials for the production of bioplastics, including mostly fruit and vegetable wastes. The conversion of fruit and vegetable wastes into biomaterials could occur through simple or more complex processes. In some cases, biopolymers extracted from raw biomass are directly manufactured; on the other hand, the extracted biopolymers could be reinforced or used as reinforcing agents and/or natural fillers in order to obtain biocomposites. The present review covers available results on the application of methods used in the last 10 years for the design of biomaterials obtained from formulations made up with both fruits and vegetables by-products. Particular attention will be addressed to the waste pre-treatment, to the bioplastic formulation and to its processing, as well as to the mechanical and physical properties of the obtained materials.
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spelling pubmed-77962732021-01-10 Natural Polymeric Materials: A Solution to Plastic Pollution from the Agro-Food Sector Acquavia, Maria Assunta Pascale, Raffaella Martelli, Giuseppe Bondoni, Marcella Bianco, Giuliana Polymers (Basel) Review Conventional petroleum-derived plastics represent a serious problem for global pollution because, when discarded in the environment, are believed to remain for hundreds of years. In order to reduce dependence on fossil resources, bioplastic materials are being proposed as safer alternatives. Bioplastics are bio-based and/or biodegradable materials, typically derived from renewable sources. Food waste as feedstock represents one of the recent applications in the research field of bioplastics production. To date, several food wastes have been used as raw materials for the production of bioplastics, including mostly fruit and vegetable wastes. The conversion of fruit and vegetable wastes into biomaterials could occur through simple or more complex processes. In some cases, biopolymers extracted from raw biomass are directly manufactured; on the other hand, the extracted biopolymers could be reinforced or used as reinforcing agents and/or natural fillers in order to obtain biocomposites. The present review covers available results on the application of methods used in the last 10 years for the design of biomaterials obtained from formulations made up with both fruits and vegetables by-products. Particular attention will be addressed to the waste pre-treatment, to the bioplastic formulation and to its processing, as well as to the mechanical and physical properties of the obtained materials. MDPI 2021-01-04 /pmc/articles/PMC7796273/ /pubmed/33406618 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/polym13010158 Text en © 2021 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Review
Acquavia, Maria Assunta
Pascale, Raffaella
Martelli, Giuseppe
Bondoni, Marcella
Bianco, Giuliana
Natural Polymeric Materials: A Solution to Plastic Pollution from the Agro-Food Sector
title Natural Polymeric Materials: A Solution to Plastic Pollution from the Agro-Food Sector
title_full Natural Polymeric Materials: A Solution to Plastic Pollution from the Agro-Food Sector
title_fullStr Natural Polymeric Materials: A Solution to Plastic Pollution from the Agro-Food Sector
title_full_unstemmed Natural Polymeric Materials: A Solution to Plastic Pollution from the Agro-Food Sector
title_short Natural Polymeric Materials: A Solution to Plastic Pollution from the Agro-Food Sector
title_sort natural polymeric materials: a solution to plastic pollution from the agro-food sector
topic Review
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7796273/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33406618
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/polym13010158
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