Biodegradable packaging derived from coconut leaf fiber mechanical properties

Che Asudin, Che Amimi Yasmin (2022) Biodegradable packaging derived from coconut leaf fiber mechanical properties. Project Report. Melaka, Malaysia, Universiti Teknikal Malaysia Melaka. (Submitted)

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Abstract

Nowadays, environmental awareness has increased in society that involving new materials and goods. This awareness is related to creating petroleum-based products, particularly those used to produce short-life products such as disposable eating utensils, food packaging, and bags with an indirect environmental impact. Furthermore, this issue arises because the use of non-biodegradable plastic contributed to environmental issues such as water pollution, air pollution, and landfill problems. Hence, the need to create more environmentally friendly products is crucial, and the development of the quality of the materials increased from days to days to overcome this problem. Numerous studies have been conducted on biopolymers derived from renewable resources because they are one of the most promising materials for replacing petroleum-based polymers.The objective of this study is to produce biodegradable thermoplastic cassava starch reinforced with coconut leaf fiber composite. Second, to investigate the thermal testing and mechanical testing of biodegradable thermoplastic cassava starch reinforced with coconut leaf fiber composite and to produce biodegradable packaging from the coconut leaf fiber. Natural fibre is a biodegradable natural fibre that is used as a reinforcement in polymeric composites mostly due to its low production costs, improved hardness, excellent fatigue resistance, good thermal and mechanical resistivity, and biodegradability.Hence, all materials were uniformly mixed before being fabricated with hot compression moulding at 155 °C for 60 mins. The fundamental properties of TPCS reinforced by coconut leaf fibre biopolymer composites were next studied in order to evaluate their potential as biodegradable reinforcements. The appearance of coconut leaf fibre was discovered to have an effect on the attributes of the samples. The incorporation of beeswax and coconut leaf fiber improves the weaknesses of cassava starch biopolymer, and the composition ratio is 10 – 40 wt.%. Moreover, it is expected to improve mechanical properties. This research investigates mechanical testing by using such as tensile and flexural test while thermal testing consist thermogravimetric analysis (TGA). For other testing consists Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR) and Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) against the behavior of TPCS reinforced by coconut leaf fiber composite. In generally, a similar trend in the tensile and flexural characteristics of the TPCS coconut leaf fiber composite was observed. Addition of fiber at 30% shows the maximum tensile and flexural strength and modulus while tensile strain, it was found that at 10% shows the maximum and for the flexural shows that, at 20% shows the maximum result. Besides that, the characterization of TPCS reinforced with coconut leaf fiber was done by using SEM and FTIR. The presence of chemical bonding in the samples is shown by FTIR. Hence, it was found that there the present of O-H, C-H and C-O bands in the samples. Moreover, microstructures of the composite are shown by SEM micrographs as fiber concentration increases. The presence of fiber break which aid in the improvement of the mechanical properties. Hence, in term of thermal, the properties were improved with addition of the fiber, as shown by higher residue content. In conclusion, the study presented potential application fields of TPCS reinforced by coconut leaf fiber biopolymer composites, particularly in packaging applications. As a result, this material has the potential to be a viable replacement for non-biodegradable bioplastics in the future, and natural waste can be fully exploited.

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