Bionanocomposites Derived
from Polysaccharides: Green Fabrication
and Applications
Shadpour Mallakpour and Mina Naghdi
Abstract
Go-green is one of the most important issues in the
current century. In the field of bionanocomposites,
polysaccharides could be proper alternatives for the
oil-based materials. Apart from their natural abundance
and low costs, polysaccharides are non-toxic, biocompatible, and present extraordinary features. Their biodegradability is of great importance as well. Along with their
merits, wide usage of polysaccharides may be restricted
because of some shortages. Some disadvantages may
come into play when polysaccharides are used alone.
Here, the role of some materials at nanodimensions is
highlighted. For this reason, a new generation of
bionanocomposites derived from polysaccharides has
been introduced with the potential to be employed in
different sectors from biomedical and healthcare sectors
such as wound dressing, tissue engineering, and drug
delivery systems to water treatment and so on. In this
chapter, the attempt was to discuss the imperative role of
polysaccharides as either matrix or nanofiller in the
preparation of bionanocomposites. The most important
applications of the mentioned bionanocomposites related
to their special features are also revealed in detail.
Keywords
Tissue engineering Á Water treatment Á Solution casting
Á Hydrogel Á Antibacterial Á Scanning electron
microscopy Á Food packaging Á Reducing agent
1 Introduction
Nowadays, plastics with the base of petrochemical have
entered to all aspects of life. Their role in the packaging
sectors, automobile industry, construction and building, and
almost all consumer goods and products cannot be denied
(Amin et al. 2015). Following their vast usage, their accumulation in environment and landfilling has arisen global
concerns. Each year, 150 million tons of plastic wastes are
added to the environment and their major accumulation is in
the landfills and oceans (Beydoun and Klankermayer 2020).
It has been estimated by United Nations Environment Programme, if this trend of production and disposal of these
wastes continues, the total production of plastics will be
more than 2000 million tons by 2050 (Liu et al. 2020). One
may propose recycling as an alternative for this issue, but
most of the recycling protocols are not cost-effective and the
recycled polymer does not meet all the quality requirements
to be reused (Beydoun and Klankermayer 2020). Several
other strategies have been suggested such as burning and
producing petrol from plastic wastes, but they are not much
effective to be used in a vast domain (Shahnawaz et al.
2019). So, using polymers and their derivatives, which are
biodegradable and obtainable from sustainable resources,
i.e., biopolymers seems to be one of the reasonable and best
ways to solve these problems.
2 Biopolymers
Biopolymers are a class of synthetic or naturally occurring
polymers that are degradable using enzymes, bacteria, or
fungi (Mousa et al. 2016). Nowadays, there are diverse
routes to supply biopolymers and they are generally classified as follows (Turan et al. 2018):
(i) Using biomass as the resources including proteins
(such as gelatin, collagen, casein), polysaccharides
S. Mallakpour (&) Á M. Naghdi
Organic Polymer Chemistry Research Laboratory, Deparment of
Chemistry, Isfahan University of Technology, Isfahan,
84156-83111, Iran
e-mail: mallak@iut.ac.ir; mallak777@yahoo.com
M. Naghdi
e-mail: mina.naghdi@ch.iut.ac.ir
© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021
Inamuddin and A. Khan (eds.), Sustainable Bioconversion of Waste to Value Added Products, Advances in Science,
Technology & Innovation, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-61837-7_12
193
from Polysaccharides: Green Fabrication
and Applications
Shadpour Mallakpour and Mina Naghdi
Abstract
Go-green is one of the most important issues in the
current century. In the field of bionanocomposites,
polysaccharides could be proper alternatives for the
oil-based materials. Apart from their natural abundance
and low costs, polysaccharides are non-toxic, biocompatible, and present extraordinary features. Their biodegradability is of great importance as well. Along with their
merits, wide usage of polysaccharides may be restricted
because of some shortages. Some disadvantages may
come into play when polysaccharides are used alone.
Here, the role of some materials at nanodimensions is
highlighted. For this reason, a new generation of
bionanocomposites derived from polysaccharides has
been introduced with the potential to be employed in
different sectors from biomedical and healthcare sectors
such as wound dressing, tissue engineering, and drug
delivery systems to water treatment and so on. In this
chapter, the attempt was to discuss the imperative role of
polysaccharides as either matrix or nanofiller in the
preparation of bionanocomposites. The most important
applications of the mentioned bionanocomposites related
to their special features are also revealed in detail.
Keywords
Tissue engineering Á Water treatment Á Solution casting
Á Hydrogel Á Antibacterial Á Scanning electron
microscopy Á Food packaging Á Reducing agent
1 Introduction
Nowadays, plastics with the base of petrochemical have
entered to all aspects of life. Their role in the packaging
sectors, automobile industry, construction and building, and
almost all consumer goods and products cannot be denied
(Amin et al. 2015). Following their vast usage, their accumulation in environment and landfilling has arisen global
concerns. Each year, 150 million tons of plastic wastes are
added to the environment and their major accumulation is in
the landfills and oceans (Beydoun and Klankermayer 2020).
It has been estimated by United Nations Environment Programme, if this trend of production and disposal of these
wastes continues, the total production of plastics will be
more than 2000 million tons by 2050 (Liu et al. 2020). One
may propose recycling as an alternative for this issue, but
most of the recycling protocols are not cost-effective and the
recycled polymer does not meet all the quality requirements
to be reused (Beydoun and Klankermayer 2020). Several
other strategies have been suggested such as burning and
producing petrol from plastic wastes, but they are not much
effective to be used in a vast domain (Shahnawaz et al.
2019). So, using polymers and their derivatives, which are
biodegradable and obtainable from sustainable resources,
i.e., biopolymers seems to be one of the reasonable and best
ways to solve these problems.
2 Biopolymers
Biopolymers are a class of synthetic or naturally occurring
polymers that are degradable using enzymes, bacteria, or
fungi (Mousa et al. 2016). Nowadays, there are diverse
routes to supply biopolymers and they are generally classified as follows (Turan et al. 2018):
(i) Using biomass as the resources including proteins
(such as gelatin, collagen, casein), polysaccharides
S. Mallakpour (&) Á M. Naghdi
Organic Polymer Chemistry Research Laboratory, Deparment of
Chemistry, Isfahan University of Technology, Isfahan,
84156-83111, Iran
e-mail: mallak@iut.ac.ir; mallak777@yahoo.com
M. Naghdi
e-mail: mina.naghdi@ch.iut.ac.ir
© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021
Inamuddin and A. Khan (eds.), Sustainable Bioconversion of Waste to Value Added Products, Advances in Science,
Technology & Innovation, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-61837-7_12
193