Nowadays, the pollution has considerably increased by the large amount of the non-degradable synthetic plastics that is discarded everyday in the environment. One of the alternatives that could contribute to minimize this problem would be the use of the starch as main composite in biodegradable films also called biofilms; in other words, this material is easily degradable when disposed in the environment. Despite the growing number of the scientific papers there is a lack of knowledge of the physical properties of starch in biofilms. The aim of this work was to study the color variation, the topographic superficial surface by scanning electron microscopy and the water absorption by contact angle of biofilms produced with three different starch sources: potato starch film (PSF), cassava starch film (CSF) and maize starch film (MSF) with varied concentration: 1, 2 and 3% to prepare biofilms using a complete randomize design with three repetitions. The interaction between starch source and concentration was statistically significant for contact angle whereas it was not significant for color. The color difference was affected by starch source being higher for CSF. As concentration increased in biofilms of potato and cassava, the contact angle decreased in contrast to maize biofilms which remained constant.
Biofilms; starch; color; microscopy; contact angle
