Abstract
D-limonene is a monoterpene obtained from a variety of citrus fruit peel oil
which is the most important residue in citrus industry. It is food grade and presents
antioxidant properties. The use of antioxidants additives in polymers for food
packaging is a common practice to reduce their potential thermo-oxidative
degradation during processing and they could also prevent the food oxidation
reducing the direct addition of antioxidants to the food. Among them, the great
interest towards the use of renewable natural resources in the food packaging
industry makes natural antioxidants candidates to stabilize biodegradable polymer
formulations. In this sense, poly(lactic acid) (PLA) seems to be the most attractive
biodegradable polymer for food packaging industry. Thus, the aim of this work was
to study the thermal degradation of PLA films stabilized with D-limonene. Kinetic
parameters were obtained by thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) in dynamic mode
and the apparent activation energies (Ea) were calculated by the Friedman method.
The comparison of Ea between PLA stabilized with D-limonene and non-stabilized
polymer furnished information on the thermal stabilization performance. The
results indicate that D-limonene shows good performance in the PLA stabilization
and therefore the possibility of its use as additive intended for food packaging
materials.
