ABSTRACT
Starch, as natural polysaccharide, is one of the most abundant renewable resources widely used for industrial applications. In addition to food uses, the nonfood applications includes chemical and/or biological conversion to ne chemicals; pharmaceuticals or chemical building blocks; manufacturing of paper and boards; and production of adhesives, bioplastics, and biofuels. In the bioplastic sector, starch has been the key raw material for production of polylactic acid (e.g., www.natureworksllc.com), polyhydroxyalkanoates (e.g., www.meredianpha.com) via biological routes, and a wide range of starch-based biopolymers such as Mater-Bi (www.materbi.com) via compounding/ grafting routes. Starch materials used in the latter process has been shown to retain its inherent high biodegradability and home compostability, a distinctive advantage to facilitate biological waste management, as opposed to conventional polymers (Song et al. 2009).
