Caracterização física e mecânica de biocompósitos fúngicos para a produção de embalagens

Abstract

The constant growth in the production of synthetic packaging is causing more and more impacts to the environment, thus arising the need to develop new alternatives to the use of such packaging. Fungal biocomposites are a promising option to this replacement, because agricultural waste is used as a substrate to develop biodegradable and ecological packaging. The present work was performed at Mush, a company incubated at UTFPR-PG, and aims to characterize fungal biocomposites produced with sawdust and rice husk waste as substrates. The characterization was performed through physical and mechanical tests, done following ISO 845:2006 and ASTM D792 - 20 for density, ASTM D570 - 2018 for water absorption, ASTM D695 - 10 for compression and UL 94 for flammability. As a result, one has the physical and mechanical characterization of the fungal biocomposite secondary packaging prototypes, according to each substrate used, and their feasibility of use. Thus, satisfactory responses were obtained from both prototypes for use as fungal biocomposite secondary packaging, following the expected parameters and commercial validation.