ABSTRACT
Biopolymers are polymers that are produced by living organisms, which can include animals, plants, bacteria, and fungi. Many applications look to utilize biopolymers for their sustainability, industrial ecology, eco-efficiency, renewable nature, antibacterial activity, and inherent properties. Biopolymers often exhibit monodispersity, a property that makes their sequence identical throughout, whereas synthetic polymers tend to exhibit a polydispersity. Chitosan is a biopolymer that has a huge variation in physicochemical properties, which include molecular weight and deacetylation degree, due to it being derived from multiple organisms including animals, fungi, and plants. As biopolymers are derived from living organisms, some exhibit antibacterial activity, essentially the ability to kill or inhibit bacterial growth. Biopolymer based packaging has been developed using materials such as oregano oil, polylysine, sodium lactate, sorbitol-plasticized whey protein isolate films. Biopolymers can be sustainable, as they tend to be carbon neutral and renewable resources.
