Cassava starch films for food packaging: Trends over the last decade and future research

• Published in: International journal of biological macromolecules 2023-01, Vol.225, p.658-672
• Main Authors: Matheus, Julia Rabelo Vaz, de Farias, Patrícia Marques, Satoriva, Juliana Martins, de Andrade, Cristiano José, Fai, Ana Elizabeth Cavalcante
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Agro-industrial waste; Biodegradable film; Biopolymers; Brazil; Food Packaging - methods; Manihot - chemistry; Polymers - chemistry; Starch - chemistry
• ISSN: 0141-8130; 1879-0003
• DOI: 10.1016/j.ijbiomac.2022.11.129

Cassava starch is one of the most available and cost-effective biopolymers. This work aimed to apply a bibliometric methodology to identify the most impactful scientific data on cassava starch and its residues for food packaging in the last ten years. As a result, an increasing interest in this subject has been observed, mainly in the past five years. Among the 85 selected scientific publications, Brazil and China have been leading the research on starch-based films, accounting for 39 % of the total. The International Journal of Biological Macromolecules was the main scientific source of information. Besides cassava starch, 41.18 % of these studies added other biopolymers, 5.88 % added synthetic polymers, and 4.71 % added a combination of both. Studies analyzed suggested that different modifications in starch can improve films' mechanical and barrier properties. In addition, 52.94 % of articles evaluated the film's bioactivity. Still, only 37.65 % assessed the performance of those films as food packaging, suggesting that more studies should be conducted on assessing the potential of these alternative packages. Future research should consider scale-up methods for film production, including cost analysis, assessment life cycle, and the impact on the safety and quality of a broader range of foods. •Cassava starch is a promising raw material to produce biodegradable films.•Brazil has been leading research on the development of starch-based films.•Starch chemical structure modifications are necessary to improve properties of films.•The cassava agro-industrial residues to extract biopolymers are still underexplored.•Starch-based films present great potential to package different food matrices.