In the past years, research has been focused on biodegradable materials to replace petroleum based plastics for food packaging application. For this purpose, biopolymers are considered the most promising material because of their biodegradable nature and long shelf life properties like resistance to chemical or enzymatic reactions. Starch is renewable, cheap, and abundantly available biopolymer. However, the intermolecular forces and hydrogen bonds in starch resist it to be processed as a thermoplastic material. To overcome this issue, different plasticizers are used to have deformable thermoplastic material called thermoplastic starches (TPSs). A plasticizer enhances the flexibility, the process stability of starch below the degradation temperature. Plasticizer lowers the glass transition temperature (Tg).

TPS is very promising among the biobased materials available for the production of biodegradable plastic. TPS have some limitations; bad mechanical properties and water sensitivity. Starch absorbs water under higher relative humidity. This work will provide an outline about the research that has been done on TPS during last 15 years as biodegradable food packaging material.

Practical Applications
The basic role of food packaging material is to make it cost effective that satisfies industry requirements and consumer desires, and provide protection from three major classes of external influences: chemical, biological, and physical, e.g., such as exposure to gases, barrier to microorganisms, or from mechanical damage, respectively. These external influences may damage the quality of the food and shelf life. For this motive, starch has become the most preferred option among the verified classes of synthetic and natural materials. Retrogradation of starch chains in presence of water make it impossible to be use as packaging material. To overcome this issue, Starch has been plasticized with water and low molecular weight additive that can interact with its backbone by hydrogen bonding to produce thermoplastic starch (TPS). The objective of this review is to summarize numerous studies related to interaction of plasticizers and starch for the production of biodegradable TPS food packaging materials.

Thermoplastic Starch: A Possible Biodegradable Food Packaging Material—A Review

Styrene dimers and trimers affect reproduction of daphnid (Ceriodaphnia dubia).

Due to the 2011 labelling of styrene monomer as "reasonably anticipated to be a human carcinogen" by the National Institutes of Health's National Toxicology Program (NTP) and the controversy over whether styrene oligomers mimic the physiological effects of estrogen, an updated review of styrene monomer and oligomers in food and food contact materials (FCMs) was performed. The concentrations of styrene monomer and oligomers were determined in 24 polystyrene (PS) products and ranged from 9.3 to 3100 mg kg(-1) for the styrene monomer, 130-2900 mg kg(-1) for the sum of three styrene dimers, and 220-16,000 mg kg(-1) for the sum of six styrene trimers. Foods in contact with PS packaging had styrene monomer concentrations ranging from 2.6 to 163 ng g(-1); dimer concentrations from the limit of quantitation (LOQ) to 4.8 ng g(-1) and trimer concentrations were all below the LOQ (2 ng g(-1)). Diffusion coefficients (Dp) and partition coefficients (K) were also calculated for styrene dimers and trimers. The results presented here indicate that styrene monomer concentrations in foods have not significantly changed since the 1980s and monomer concentrations in food packaging quantified in this study were all below USFDA limits. Although styrene dimers and trimers are present in higher concentrations in PS FCMs than the monomer, their migration to food is limited because of their high K values (4 × 10(2) to 2 × 10(6)) and their low diffusion coefficients in PS products. Additionally, diffusion coefficients calculated using USFDA-recommended food simulants and Arrhenius plots describing the temperature dependence of styrene dimers and trimers can be used in future calculations of dietary intake of the styrene oligomers.

Updated evaluation of the migration of styrene monomer and oligomers from polystyrene food contact materials to foods and food simulants

Endocrine-disrupting effects of styrene oligomers that migrated from polystyrene containers into food

Purpose. To investigate the role of environment in breast cancer development, we conducted an ecological study to examine the association of releases for selected industrial chemicals with breast cancer incidence in Texas.

Y. Azuma

Papers

Assessment of styrene oligomers eluted from polystyrene-made food containers for estrogenic effects in in vitro assays.