Improvement of β-cyclodextrin/cardanol inclusion complex for the thermal-oxidative stability and environmental-response antioxidation releasing property of polylactic acid

In this article, a β-cyclodextrin(CD)/cardanol (CA) inclusion complex (IC) was fabricated by co-precipitation method, which was used to guarantee excellent thermal oxidative stability and environmental-response antioxidation releasing property of PLA. The results showed that CA was successfully immobilized into β-CD with a stoichiometric ratio of 1:1, and the immobilization inhibited the migrant of CA from PLA during storage, resulting in the enhancement of antioxidant life of CA in PLA. Thus, PLA stabilized by IC (PLA/IC) maintained higher oxidation onset temperature (OOT) and molecular weight after long-term thermal oxidative aging. Moreover, CA releasing comparison from PLA/IC and PLA stabilized by CA (PLA/CA) in food stimulant suggested that PLA/IC released CA faster than PLA/CA when PLA contacted with food stimulants due to the solubilization of β-CD for CA, which would induce the quicker antioxidation of CA in food. In a word, IC can make PLA with longer anti-oxidative stability during storage and quicker environmental-response antioxidation releasing property during usage, showing strong potential as an active food-packaging materials.