Department of Food Science and Technology, Faculty of Agriculture, University of Zanjan, Zanjan, 45371-38791, Iran.
Department of Chemistry, Faculty of Science, University of Zanjan, Zanjan, 45371-38791, Iran.
Environ Sci Pollut Res Int. 2024 Oct;31(48):58456-58471. doi: 10.1007/s11356-024-34938-8. Epub 2024 Sep 24.
Plastics are known for their durability and long decomposition time in the environment, which make plastic recycling an effective approach to mitigate plastic waste risks. However, the global plastic recycling rate is less than 10% mainly due to the labor-intensive and time-consuming nature of the manual recycling process, which poses high health risks and costs. Therefore, the development of a fast, effective, and operational process in current recycling plants is crucial to address the environmental concerns associated with plastics. In the current study, the feasibility of starch/FeO/TiO bio-nanocomposite (SFT) as photo-modifiable and photo-degradable was investigated to reduce the workforce in recycling packaging material. The SFT was modified by different UV-C exposure times, which significantly altered its functional properties. The UV-C exposure increased the hydrophobicity of the SFT films and led to a homogenous distribution of FeO/TiO nanoparticles (FT). It also increased tensile strength (TS) and decreased elongation at break (EB) of the films. It seems that producing shorter polymer chains, creating new linkages among the polymeric chains, and the homogenous distribution of FT in the matrix of biopolymer by UV-C are the main reasons for these changes. Moreover, the photo-degradation of SFT specimens increased significantly with longer UV-C exposure times. The utilization of magnetic properties in bio-based nanocomposites holds promising potential for streamlining labor-intensive processes in waste recycling plants. However, the inappropriate visual properties of SFT remain a significant obstacle that requires further attention to enable its commercial viability.
塑料以其耐用性和在环境中的长时间分解而闻名，这使得塑料回收成为减轻塑料废物风险的有效方法。然而，全球塑料回收率不到 10%，主要原因是手工回收过程劳动强度大且耗时，对健康和成本都有很高的风险。因此，在当前的回收工厂中开发一种快速、有效和可操作的过程对于解决与塑料相关的环境问题至关重要。在当前的研究中，研究了淀粉/FeO/TiO 生物纳米复合材料（SFT）作为可光修饰和光降解的可行性，以减少回收包装材料中的劳动力。通过不同的 UV-C 暴露时间对 SFT 进行了改性，这显著改变了其功能特性。UV-C 暴露增加了 SFT 薄膜的疏水性，并导致 FeO/TiO 纳米颗粒（FT）均匀分布。它还提高了薄膜的拉伸强度（TS）并降低了断裂伸长率（EB）。似乎产生较短的聚合物链、在聚合物链之间形成新的键以及 UV-C 在生物聚合物基质中均匀分布 FT 是这些变化的主要原因。此外，随着 UV-C 暴露时间的延长，SFT 试样的光降解显著增加。磁性在基于生物的纳米复合材料中的利用为简化废物回收工厂中的劳动密集型过程提供了有前途的潜力。然而，SFT 的不合适的视觉特性仍然是一个重大障碍，需要进一步关注以实现其商业可行性。
