The importance of cellulosic derivatives in production of the biodegradable films for food packaging applications

Increasing in production and consumption of plastics and petroleum composites in human's daily life, leads to accumulation of large amounts of non-biodegradable plastic wastes and it has caused many environmental problems. Evaluations show that each year large amounts of plastics are produced in the world and much plastic trash discarded into the marine environment and it accumulates. Since biopolymers obtained from renewable resources and therefore, they are biodegradable, application of them compared to petroleum based polymers have lower negative environmental impacts. The use of biodegradable polymers must be confirmed from two points of view; First, the environmental perspective; this means that the material must degrade rapidly in the environment and second, from the industrial view point, i.e. the material characteristics in industry such as durability and efficiency are expected. Low cost, renewability, availability and good thermal stability are the main advantages of biodegradable polymers. In this study, some of the most important cellulose derivatives that are commonly used in the production of biodegradable films for food packagings have been investigated.