Petroleum-based plastics have had a long history with varied materials and applications. However, the major drawback with these plastics is their harmful impact on the environment. Poor disposal management of these plastics have ultimately affected humans. Therefore, starch-based bioplastics have been widely used because of their renewability, sustainability and cost-effectiveness. This work investigated the effect of different concentrations of corn starch (10%, 15%, and 20% w/w of distilled water) and glycerol (20%, 30%, and 40% w/v of corn starch) on the properties of corn-based bioplastic films. Particularly, mechanical (tensile strength, Young’s modulus and elongation at break) and physical (water absorption rate and moisture content) properties were investigated. These films were prepared by the solvent casting method. It was demonstrated that the addition of 30% glycerol produced mechanical properties closest to the standard value, while films with a composition of 15% of corn starch had the most optimised value. Meanwhile, 20% glycerol and 20% corn starch produced a film with high strength and stiffness but lacked flexibility. Higher concentrations of starch and glycerol produced the highest moisture and water absorption rate. This was due to the highly hydrophilic nature of both corn starch and glycerol. However, the concentration of glycerol needs to be adjusted based on the intended use of the film. In conclusion, the concentration of corn starch and glycerol produced slightly different outcomes. Thus, the properties and application of the cornbased bioplastic films can be maximised by optimising the concentration of corn starch and glycerol.

Currently, there was an intensive study to used starch as raw material to produce bioplastic for a wide range of applications. However, starch-based has limited the range of applications due to their unfavorable properties such as brittleness, increase the viscosity, retrogradation and insolubility in cold water. There ionizing radiation was introduced. With the proper amount of energy and source, ionizing radiation will improve the starch-based bioplastic properties which is having mechanical and barrier properties. In this paper, the ionizing radiation source that compared with is ultraviolet (UV), electron beam, and gamma ray. Each of the rays gives a different result and gamma ray give the most promising result, however above 40kGy it will compromise the structure and properties of the starch based bioplastic. For conclude, ionizing radiation will improve the starch based bioplastic properties and will not compromise their properties within the appropriate range of energy.

There are increasing intrest in research on corn based bioplastic to replace current plastic. However, corn based bioplastic faces a major drawback which are lack water barrier and poor mechanical properties resulting from its hydophilic properties. To produce better corn based bioplastic properties, a lot of research has been focuses on blend corn based bioplastic with other co biopolymer or additives and also radiation. By using radiation corn based bioplastic will induce degradation, cross linking or grafting and next the properties of corn based bioplastic will be improve in aspect of mechanical, physical and barrier properties and also acceptable to use as packaging material. Irradiated corn based bioplastic also have wide range of technology, the availability, less harmful to environment and the most important is the potential to use as packaging material. There is hot debate about using irradiated corn based bioplastic as packaging material. This review paper will be discussing and also to provide information on influence of radiation on the properties corn based bioplastic and its feasibility as packaging material.

In the reactor operation, neutrons and gamma rays are the most dominant radiation. As protection, lead and concrete shields are built around the reactor. However, the radiation can penetrate the water shielding inside the reactor pool. This incident leads to the occurrence of sky shine where a physical phenomenon of nuclear radiation sources was transmitted panoramic that extends to the environment. The effect of this phenomenon is caused by the fallout radiation into the surrounding area which causes the radiation dose to increase. High doses of exposure cause a person to have stochastic effects or deterministic effects. Therefore, this study was conducted to measure the radiation dose from sky shine effect that scattered around the reactor at different distances and different height above the reactor platform. In this paper, the analysis of the radiation dose of sky shine effect was measured using the experimental method.

Bioplastics have been gaining traction in these few years and but still need to achieve the level of physical properties found in petrochemical plastics for wider use in applications involving radiation techniques. This study aimed to investigate the synthesis of starch bioplastic from plant sources such as starch and understand how radiation affects such a material relative to petrochemical plastic. The starch bioplastic samples were synthesised from corn flour and irradiated with a low dose along with PET and PE for comparison. Analysis was done on surface morphology, Vickers hardness test and FTIR for comparison between samples without irradiation and with irradiation. This study found almost no changes in PET, PE and starch bioplastic when exposed to 13.05 mGy of absorbed dose. Comparison between samples of the same material without and with irradiation found no observable changes in the surface morphology. After undergoing irradiation, the Vickers hardness value was found to have changed, for PET a decrease of 1.2 HV from 21.9 HV to 20.7 HV; for PE an increase of 1.57 HV from 5.49 HV to 7.06 HV; for starch bioplastic a slight increase of 0.28 HV from 1.74 HV to 2.02 HV. As for FTIR spectroscopy, the irradiated PET sample displayed slight decreased absorption for overall absorption spectra and significant decreased absorption of peaks at 1700 cm-1 , 1250 cm-1 , 1000 cm-1 and 720 cm-1 compared to non-irradiated sample. For PE, decreased absorption was found in the overall absorption spectra for sample with irradiation. For starch bioplastic however, no difference was found in the absorption spectra for both samples without and with irradiation. With these findings along with identified issues involved in the synthesis process of the starch bioplastic, this study would help to increase the favourability of bioplastics over conventional petrochemical plastics used in disposable consumer products.