Production of Biodegradable Plastic Packaging Film from Cassava Starch

Abstract

-Materials used for food packaging today consists of a variety of petroleum-derived plastic polymer, metals, glass, paper and board, or combinations thereof. Among these packaging materials, plastic is found to be the best because of its long life properties. Thus, its utilization is increasing every day by day. However, plastics cannot be degraded by natural processes in a short period of time; therefore, they are left as plastic waste, causing environmental problems. Methods normally used to destroy other types of waste such as burning and burying are not suitable for plastic destruction. In response to these problems associated with plastic waste, there has been considerable interest in the development and production of biodegradable plastics. In this work, a biodegradable plastic film was produced by blending cassava starch and a synthetic biodegradable polymer (PVA). The film produced was found to have a biodegradability of 41.27% compared to 10.33% and 85.99% for polythene and paper respectively. The film also has a tensile strength of 24.87N/mm 2 compared to 10.86N/mm 2 and 8.29N/mm 2 for polythene and paper. The potential of producing biodegradable packaging plastic film from cassava starch is encouraging and should be further explored especially in a country with high cassava productivity, like Nigeria.

Evaluation of Water Affinity and Soil Burial Degradation of Thermoplastic Film Derived from Oil Palm Ash-filled Polyvinyl Alcohol

“…polyvinyl alcohol (PVOH), polyurethanes, polycaprolactone (PCL), etc., have been introduced to produce plastics that can be biodegraded upon disposal. Many of the biodegradable plastics were produced by blending starch with PVOH, chitosan with PVOH, amongst others, to produce more eco-friendly plastics (Leja and Lewandowicz 2010;Ezeoha and Ezenwanne 2013).…”

Effect of Hydrochloric Acid Concentration as Chitosan Solvent on Mechanical Properties of Bioplastics from Durian Seed Starch (Durio Zibethinus) with Filler Chitosan and Plasticizer Sorbitol

“…Starch is used for it is easily degradable by nature to be environmentally friendly compounds. In Indonesia founded various plants yield flour (starch) like cassava [10], potato [3], durian [11] and etc. Starch can be a promising material for plastic raw material because its characteristics are universal, biodegradable, and has affordable price [12].…”

Preparation and regulation of structural-mechanical properties of biodegradable films based on starch and agar

“…In addition, it has low barrier indicators [12]. At the same time, to improve the properties of starch films, it is proposed to obtain its composites with other polymers [12,13]. Indeed, the combination of starch with a syn-thetic polymer -polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) improves the properties of its films.…”

“…In the case of [12], the introduction of PVA into the starch films caused an increase in their mechanical properties and gas permeability. In [13], the inclusion of PVA in the composition of cassava starch films led to the production of biodegradable films, but these films were stronger than polyethylene films. It can be assumed that mixing a starch solution with a solution of another polysaccharide -agarwill result in films with lower strength, which will increase their biodegradability.…”