Fabrication and Characterization Studies of Alginate Biocomposite Film for Potential Use in Food Sensing Application

This research is about the fabrication and properties study of the alginate bio-composites film for potential use in food sensing applications. A response surface methodology (RSM) was employed to optimize the concentration of sodium alginate (1 to 5% w/v), glycerol (0.4 to 0.8% w/v), and maltodextrin (0.4 to 0.8% w/v) as a function of the tensile strength (TS) and elongation at break (EB) and toughness (T) of the biofilms. The coefficientdetermination (R2) result obtained for TS against alginate, glycerol and maltodextrin is 81.05%, while for EB and T are 32.07% and 64.70% respectively. It showed that the addition of sodium alginate, glycerol and maltodextrin at different concentrations had significantly affected the TS but no effect on EB and T was observed. The optimization study of the film produces two conditions which are conditions 1 and 2. The optimum conditions parameter for condition 1 is a film with 3.0% alginate concentration, 1.0g/g of glycerol content, and 1.50g/g of maltodextrin content while condition 2 was 1.0% of alginate concentration, 1.0g/g of glycerol content and 0.0g/g maltodextrin content. The values of the TS obtained at the optimized condition were 4.75 MPa and 22.99 MPa which is lower than the predicted value of condition 1 (7.0 MPa) or the maximized TS at condition 2 respectively. The thickness value of edible films in this study had an average of 0.54 mm which was higher than the maximum standard thickness of edible films according to the Japanese Industrial Standard (JIS) which is 0.25 mm. Water Vapour Permeability (WVTR) study indicated that all alginate films in this study had a value higher than the JIS 1975 standard of WVTR for edible films which is at a maximum of 10 g/m2/24 hours. The natural colour from Clitoria Ternatea was successfully immobilized into the alginate-based film and the film become dark purple. Based on the result obtained, prediction equations for responses studied are adequate to describe the experimental data on tensile strength, elongation at break, and toughness. However, further modifications are necessary for improvements in mechanical characteristics in the future.