Biodegradable polymer materials include one of the new products developed in Indonesia. The material is cheaper than other plastic materials. The breakdown time is shorter. This material is also non-toxic and very safe to wrap food.
Biodegradable polymer materials include one of the new products developed in Indonesia. The material is cheaper than other plastic materials. The breakdown time is shorter. This material is also non-toxic and very safe to wrap food.
Plastics and polymers are widely used by society. Almost every product uses plastic as a packaging or basic material. Each year about 100 million tons of plastic is produced worldwide for use in various industrial sectors. That's about the amount of plastic waste produced every year.
Plastic material is widely used because it has superior properties, such as light, transparent, waterproof, and the price is relatively cheap and affordable by all people.
In contrast, plastics still have less favorable properties. Plastics are not easily destroyed by the environment, either by the rainy weather and the heat of the sun and the microbes that live in the soil.
Moving from that problem, came the idea of using alternative materials to make environmentally friendly polymer materials (biodegradable, Red).
In some developed countries, biodegradable plastic materials are commercially produced, such as poly hydroxy alkanoate (PHA), poly e-caprolactone (PCL), poly (butylene succinic) (PBS), and lactic acid (PLA).
However, most raw materials for biodegradable plastic materials still use non-renewable resources (Red) and are not energy efficient. Thus, of course the development of biodegradable plastic materials that utilize renewable natural materials (Red) is desirable.
Moving from that thinking, Feris Firdaus, Sri Mulyaningsih, and Endang Darmawan from DPPM (Directorate of Research and Community Service, Red) Universitas Islam Indonesia (UII) Jogjakarta examines the packaging plastic that is environmentally friendly and from renewable resources.
Research that took place since early 2006 it is a research on the development of new plastic materials that can be destroyed and decomposed in the environment. In other words, this is one alternative to solve the problem of handling plastic waste.
"Biodegradable plastics from cassava starch and chitosan become one of the alternative materials for wrapping, besides being environmentally friendly because it is easy to decompose, it also has durable and lasting characteristics until 3rd month of usage," said Feris, a young researcher in materials chemistry and composites mainstay DPPM The UII.
The study, which aims to synthesize chitosan-starch composites and form biodegradable plastic films in late 2006 and also managed to get funding from the Minister of Research and Technology for the development of his research.
In this study, biodegradable plastic films are defined as films that can be recycled and destroyed naturally.
Safe, Easy to Recycle
Starch is a carbohydrate biopolymer that can be easily degraded in nature and is renewable. Starch itself has varied boundaries associated with water solubility.
A thin layer of starch can be easily damaged. To improve the characteristics, usually mixed starch biopolymer which is hydrophobic or waterproof material. One of the recommended hydrophobic biopolymers is chitosan which can be synthesized from shrimp waste and other crustaceans.
Khitosan is recommended as a high-potency biomaterial to be composited with starch or starch as the main ingredient for making starch-chitosan composites. Khitosan is an insoluble compound in water, a strong base solution, slightly soluble in HCl and HNO3, and H3PO4, and insoluble in H2SO4.
In addition, chitosan is non-toxic, susceptible to biodegradation, and is polyelectrolytic. Another characteristic of chitosan is that it can easily interact with other organic substances, such as protein and fat. Therefore, chitosan is relatively more widely used in various fields of applied industry and pharmaceutical and health industries.
Use Cassava Starch
This research is purely experimental conducted in a laboratory that is often called The True Experimental Research.
The ingredients used are starch extracted from cassava, chitosan synthesized from shrimp shell waste, acetic acid, HCl 1.25 N, 3.5 percent NaOH and 60 percent, glycerol, aquades. The equipment used is grander, blender, a set of glassware, vessel, electric heater, thermometer, PE mold, oven, tenso lab (mesdan), electric microscope (EM 30 μm / nikon HFX-DX).
The research mechanism begins with the extraction of cassava starch with aquades, filtered, precipitated, and dried. Then the treatment of starch using pentanol-1. 50 g of dried starch was dissolved in a blender containing 50 ml pentanol-1, the isolation process lasted 5 minutes.
The polymerization process of the amylose and amylopectin mixture was started by heating the temperature of 80-90 0C with the addition of 300 ml aquades, until the biopolymer was formed, then mixed glycerol (plasticizer, Red), stirring 3 minutes, molded in PE mold, two days dioven (2 x 24 Hour) at a temperature of 45 0C, subsequently released from the mold and conditioned in room or room temperature for 24 hours. Biodegradable plastic films are ready to be analyzed and tested.
The morphological analysis of the resulting biodegradable plastic film was carried out using an electric microscope (EM 30 μm). Furthermore, tests of mechanical characteristics (tensile strength, elongation at break, elastic modulus) to biodegradable plastic film with sample size of 3 x 25 cm using tenso lab.
Source : Jawa Pos
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