Hydrophobicity and physicochemical properties of agarose film as affected by chitosan addition

The blend films were prepared with different ratio of agarose (AG) and chitosan (CH) using the casting method. The fundamental performance and characteristics of AG, CH and blend films were investigated. The results showed that the tensile strength (TS) and elongation at break (EB) values of blend films were significantly (p<0.05) increased compared with AG film. The water contact angle (WCA) increased from 66.2 to 97.7° with the increasing ratio of blend film from AG70:CH30 to AG50:CH50. The thickness of blend films in this paper was varied from 0.010mm to 0.020mm, while the water vapor permeability (WVP) value of the blend film was higher than that of AG film mainly due to the increasing thickness. Moreover, hydrogen bonding and excellent compatibility were observed between agarose and chitosan according to thermogravimetric analysis (TGA), X-ray diffraction (XRD), Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) analyses.