Nanocomposite coating on surface modified polypropylene for food packaging applications

Abstract

The objective of the present work is to modify the surfacecharacteristics of the polypropylene film and to coat the nanocompositesprepared by using carrageenan, pectin and nisin with Montmorillonite K10(MMTK10), Laponite RD (LRD) along with silver nanoparticles (AgNPs). Thecoated nanocomposite films were characterized with different analyticaltechniques to find its suitability in food packaging applications. newlineThe surface of the polypropylene (PP) film was modified by oxygenplasma treatment andthe effect of mechanical, barrier and adhesion propertieson the surface modified PP was studied and the results were optimized by usingTOPSIS technique. The PP film was treated with oxygen plasma in variouspower settings of 7.2W, 10.2 W and 29.6 W at different time intervals of 60 s,120 s, 180 s, 240 s and 300 s. To characterize the wettability, the contact anglewas measured and the surface energy values were calculated. The presence ofoxygen moieties on the surface of plasma modified PP was confirmed by ATR- FTIR analysis. The roughness of the PP film increased from 1.491 nm to 7.26nm due to the increase of treatment time with different powermode. The newlinecrystalline structure of the untreated and plasma treated PP was characterizedby X Ray Diffraction (XRD) analysis. newline newline