Response surface modeling and analysis of barrier and optical properties of maize starch edible films.

In this work, four factors with three level Box-Behnken response surface design was employed to investigate the influence of process variables (maize starch, sorbitol, agar and Tween-80) on the barrier (water vapor permeability, oxygen permeability, thickness, moisture content and solubility) and optical (transparency) properties of the maize starch based edible films. Casting method was employed to prepare the edible films. The results showed that, addition of sorbitol and Tween-80 reduces the water vapor and oxygen permeability of the films, its due to the reduction of molecular mobility between polymer matrixes, where as, it also increases the thickness, moisture content, solubility and transparency of the films. The results were analyzed using Pareto analysis of variance (ANOVA) and second-order polynomial models are developed for all responses in order to predict the effect of process variables over the barrier and optical properties of the films.