Trends and developments of starch-based biodegradable polymer blends for use as food packaging with a focus on thermal stability: bibliometric, scientometric, and qualitative analyses from 2019 to 2024

Abstract

To meet the growing demand for sustainable alternatives to fossil-based plastics, research on starch-based biodegradable polymer blends has intensified in recent years. However, most studies have focused on enhancing mechanical strength and barrier properties, whereas thermal stability remains relatively underexplored. The limited thermal resistance of starch-based materials remains a significant challenge for their industrial use in food packaging, which typically employs extrusion, compression molding, and injection molding. This review aims to address this gap by providing a critical overview of recent scientific advances in the thermal stability of starch-based polymer blends. To identify current trends and emerging technologies, a scientometric and bibliometric analysis was conducted on 420 peer-reviewed articles published between 2019 and 2024, a period marked by a significant increase in publications on biodegradable polymer blends since 2004, from the Scopus database using the Bibliometrix and VOSviewer tools. The results show that, although starch-based blends exhibit better thermal and mechanical performance, most studies remain at the laboratory scale, with limited use of industrial processing techniques and advanced thermal characterization methods, such as dynamic mechanical analysis (DMA) and melt flow rate (MFR). The review also discusses the current challenges and opportunities for scaling up production and enhancing the thermal stability of these materials, particularly in the context of active and intelligent packaging.

Keywords: Composite films; Multifunctional compounds; Polymers; Polysaccharide; Thermal performance.