Effects of Glycerol Plasticizer on Physical Characteristic of Whey-Konjac Films Enriched with Clove Essential Oil

Edible film is a food packaging that can be eaten directly and have protection function of outside contamination. The purpose of this research is to know how about the effect of using a glycerol plasticizer to film whey-konjac edible films that enriched with clove essential oil.

A completely randomized design was used by different clove essential oil including P10, 0% clove essential oil; P10C1, 5% clove essential oil; P10C2, 10% clove essential oil; and P10C3, 15% clove essential oil. The present study investigated the physical characteristics, including tensile strength, elongation, Water Vapour Transmission Rate (WVTR), and microstructur film. Data were statistically evaluated using an Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) in Statistical Program for Social Science (SPSS) 16.0.

Results showed that the addition of glycerol plasticizer enriched with clove essential oil had no significant difference (p>0.05) to value of tensile strength, elongation, and WVTR of whey- konjac edible film. The value of tensile strength with the addition of clove essential oil at doses of 0, 5, 10, and 15% were 9.16, 7.9, 7.1, and 6.52 N, respectively. The concentration of 5% clove essential oil resulted in the best physical properties of film with a tensile strength 7.90 N, elongation 64.0%, and WVTR 8.12 g/mm2/day.

Use of clove essential oil with different concentrations had no effect on tensile strength, elongation, and WVTR; but the addition of clove essential oil had promising potential to improve the physical characteristic of whey-konjac edible films.