Starch has potential to be used in new, functional food packaging materials. The attractive factors of starch as a packaging material are its low price and degradable properties. However, brittleness hinders its function as a packaging film. In this study, chitosan nanofillers (CSN) were incorporated into sago starch (SS) formulations to improve the mechanical, physical, and chemical properties of the film. The synthesis of a new formulation from the optimization process resulted in increased mechanical properties; the tensile strength obtained for the sago starch/chitosan nanofillers (SS/CSN) film was 88 MPa compared with 46 MPa for the sago starch film (SSF). In terms of thermogravimetric analysis, the SS/CSN film sustained up to 390 °C with 60% weight loss, whereas SSF experienced a weight loss of 67% at 375 °C. The analyses summarize the concept of using biocomposites to improve the properties of film for the potential purpose in biodegradable packaging plastics.

Epoxidation reaction is an important reaction in organic synthesis because the formed epoxides are intermediates that can be converted to a variety of products. Catalytic palm oil epoxidation using titanium-grafted silica, hydrogen peroxide, and peroxoformic acid was carried out at 60 °C in a fixed batch reactor. Titanium-grafted silica with different percentages of silica content was prepared through sol-gel hydrolysis and was utilized in epoxidation of palm oil. Titanium-grafted silica particles and Epoxidized palm oil were characterized by techniques such as Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR), Field Emission Scanning Electron Microscope (FESEM) and Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR). The TiOSi bonds were detected at 960 cm-1in Ti-Si 0.5 and exhibited highest yield of epoxidized palm oil (EPO) in the epoxidation process which is 84% conversion of unsaturation in palm oil to epoxy groups. New peaks observed in the range of δ 2.4 ppm to 3.6 ppm in the NMR spectrum of EPO belong to protons of the epoxy cyclic ring group, CH-O-CH confirming successful epoxidation of palm oil using the prepared catalyst.

Superabsorbent polymer from waste polystyrene-graft-polyacrylamide was synthesized through emulsion polymerization technique using acrylamide as a monomer and potassium persulphate as an initiator in the presence of N,N-methylenebisacrylamide (NMBA) as a crosslinking agent. The effects of acrylamide loading was investigated to obtain the optimum condition that shows the best swelling capacity in three different aqueous medium; distilled water, saline solution and urea solution. Superabsorbent hydrogel were characterized by Fourier Transform Infrared (FTIR), thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) and electron scanning microscopy (SEM). Swelling test showed optimum absorbencies for distilled water, saline and urea solution were 1230 wt%, 1160 wt% and 440 wt% from their dry weight, respectively, recorded at ratio 1:10 of waste polystyrene to acrylamide. Meanwhile, the IR Spectroscopy proves that the grafting process between acrylamide and waste polystyrene was occurred in the hydrogel. Thermal degradation of the hydrogel started at 350 °C and the existence of porous unit can be observed in SEM micrographs.

Hybridization of silanized CB/PCC filler reinforced NR/SBR blends was prepared on a two roll mill. The si-CB/PCC composites were vulcanized via a conventional sulphur system at 180 o C. The primary aims of this research are to scrutinize the effects of different concentration of si treated hybrid CB/PCC fillers ranging from 2 wt. % to 10 wt. % on the NR/SBR blends properties towards the curing characteristics, viscosity and crosslink density. In this work, a positive correlation was found between silane content on the hybrid filler surface and NR/SBR blend properties. It was found that at 6% of Si 69 concentration (F4) provided improvement in crosslink density and mooney viscosity properties. Increment of crosslink density in the blends would increase the viscosity and it may be due to the network formation between the treated fillers and rubber molecules. Moreover, the incorporation of treated fillers accelerates the curing process due to the surface activation and hence leads to tightly contact between filler-rubber phases.

Ionic Liquids (ILs) that are used in the market nowadays have high complexity of processing, high viscosity and high toxicity in comparison to deep eutectic solvent (DES). Deep eutectic solvent is typically used in thermal energy storage, separation and extraction process or electrochemistry field. This study focuses on determining the physicochemical properties of DES, which are thermal conductivity, viscosity, and surface tension. Deep Eutectic Solvent was prepared by mixing hydrogen bond donor (HBD) compounds (ethylene glycol) and hydrogen bond acceptor (HBA) compounds (N,N-Diethylethanolammonium chloride) at different molar compositions. The data shows that the molar ratio HBA:HBD of 1:2 resulted in optimized values of thermal conductivity (0.218 W/mK), low viscosity (38.1 cP) and high surface tension (54 mN/m). Most notably, DES is capable of sustaining in a liquid phase at ambient condition (25°C) for more than 30 days. FTIR spectrum did not indicate any presence of a new peak. This established that only delocalization of ions occurred, and hence chemical transformations did not take place during mixing. The data obtained showed that the new synthesized solvent (DES) possess better result than the ILs. Therefore, DES can be proposed to replace the dependency to ILs.