Electrospun protein and polysaccharide nanostructures to improve barrier properties of multilayer systems based on polyhydroxyalcanoates and biopolyesters.

摘要

This work studies de effect of incorporating high barrier se lf-adhcsive nanostructured interlayers of zein, pullulan and whey protein isolate between of polyhydroxyalkanoate (PHA) materials. Oxygen and water vapour barrier properties were greatly influenced by the morphology, thickness and inherent barrier of the electrospun interlayer materials. Thus, zein (in agreement with previous works) and pullulan formed fibrillar structures which significantly contributed to improve barrier properties of the multilayer systems. On the other hand, electrospun WPI formed bead microstructures and did not improve oxygen and water barrier properties of these multilayer systems. While the oxygen barrier properties was significantly improved by the presence of a zein nanostructured interlayer, the water vapour permeability of this multilayer system was seem to vary among materials since the zein interlayer was only efficient as a barrier element in the PHA materials as compared to polylactic acid (PLA).