Produção e caracterização de biofilmes adicionados de endocarpo e mesocarpo de abricó da Amazônia (Mammae americana L.)

Abstract

The development of new technologies has been increasingly fundamental to mitigating existing environmental damage from the excessive use of plastic polymers. Based on this, bio-based films and coatings have been studied as substitute materials for plastic food packaging, bringing with them added properties from fruits, vegetables and legumes, functionalizing the elaborate biofilms. In this sense, apricot from the Amazon stands out, as it contains vitamin C and carotenoids in its composition, compounds that have antioxidant activity and may be capable of adding these properties to biofilms. With this in mind, the work aimed to develop and characterize biofilms using different polymeric matrices added with varying concentrations of apricot pulp and peel. Control biofilms were prepared using pre-defined proportions of pectin/sodium alginate/starch, glycerol and distilled water, added biofilms were prepared using variations of 20, 30, 40 and 50% of pulp or dry peel depending on the mass of the biopolymer, resulting in 27 treatments that were analyzed for thickness, grammage, moisture percentage, pH, biodegradability potential and antioxidant activity by DPPH• and FRAP, analysis of variance and Tukey's test were carried out at a significance level of 5% for data. The pectin and sodium alginate formulations showed better uniformity and better results, without suffering statistical differences with the variation in pulp and peel concentration in the properties studied. All treatments showed a decrease in pH depending on the increase in pulp or peel in the formulation and a high potential for biodegradability. There were no significant results for the antioxidant analysis by DPPH•, in relation to the FRAP analysis, the results for the formulations added with pulp were satisfactory and for the peel the results were inferior when compared with the pulp and fresh peel, respectively. The work made it possible to understand the fundamental characteristics related to formulated biofilms, in such a way that leaves open the development and study of the applicability of different biofilm formulations, highlighting the pectin and sodium alginate formulations.