preparation and evaluation of plasticized chitosan (cs) films by different amounts of glycerol (gly)

The use of chitosan as an antibacterial polymer has greatly improved in applications such as packaging, wound healing, and tissue engineering# in this work, chitosan (cs) films with different amounts of glycerol (gly) as plasticizer were prepared and optimized by a tensile test# assessment tests such as fourier transform infrared (ft-ir), solubility in water, scanning electron microscopy (sem), and thermogravimetric (tga) analyses were used for evaluation of prepared films# increased glycerol has transformed the behavior of chitosan from thermoplastic to elastomer-like# the glycerol-free sample has the highest modulus and tensile strength while exhibiting the lowest tensile strain# with increasing glycerol content, the samples became more toughness where the sample containing 1% glycerol showed the highest toughening behavior# also, glycerol-plasticized chitosan films had less solubility in water by increasing the plasticizing agent# this indicates hydrogen interactions between the glycerol and chitosan molecules# the results confirmed that chitosan films can be a good option for use in food packaging#