Vegetable wastes derived polysaccharides as natural eco-friendly plasticizers of sodium alginate

In this paper, lemon and fennel wastes were recovered and used as secondary-raw polysaccharide sources. These polysaccharides were exploited as natural plasticizers of sodium alginate (A) based films, in order to improve sodium alginate performances, limited by its fragility, extending its potential application in a cost effective and eco-friendly way. Different green processes, such as maceration (MAC), ultrasound assisted extraction (UAE) and microwave assisted extraction (MAE), were carried out for obtaining high yield of lemon and fennel polysaccharides (LP and FP). Actually, HPAE-PAD and TLC analyses evidenced the presence of xyslose, galactose, glucose and rhamnose monomers and galacturonic acid, typical of polysaccharides like pectin and xyloglucan chains. These findings were confirmed by NMR and FTIR spectroscopic analyses. Moreovers, gel filtration chromatography assessed the high molecular weight of recovered polysaccharides, particularly of FP waste fraction. The extracted polysaccharides were used as eco-friendly and cost-effective plasticizers of sodium alginate films (AFP and ALP). DSC analysis evidenced a significant decreasing of glass transition temperature of the polymer, tensile tests showed an enlightened rising of elongation at break and TGA analysis showed a faster degradation kinetics of AFP and ALP films, as expected in a plasticized system.