Development and evaluation of biodegradable plastic using banana peel starch

Abstract

Plastics are essentially a by-product of petroleum refining and its industry is considered one of the most essential industries because plastic, today, is practically ubiquitous right from sheets, rods, building blocks and domestic products. The extreme use of plastics can lead to damaging effects to the environment because degradation of these plastic requires more than 500 years to decompose completely, releasing toxic elements in the environment. It also affects human by destroying thyroid hormone axis or hormone levels. Bioplastics can be defined as plastics made of biomass such as corn, banana peels and sugarcane. Biodegradability of bioplastics has been widely publicized in society and the demand for packaging is rapidly increasing among retailers and the food industry at large scale. Population growth has led to the accumulation of massive volume of non degradable waste materials across our planet. The accumulation of plastic waste has become a major concern in terms of the environment. Conventional plastics not only take many decades during decomposition, but also produce toxins while degradation. Hence, there is need to produce a c f a e a a ca be ead e a ed f b e e a ec f e d fashion. Bioplastics are natural biopolymers synthesized and catabolized by various organisms. These get accumulated as storage materials in microbial cells under stress conditions. However, the high production cost and the availability of low-cost petrochemical derived plastics led to bioplastics being ignored for a long time. A recent global trend is to use natural, renewable, alternative resources that are beneficial in developing new materials. Thus, the biodegradable plastic becomes the encouraging result to solve this entire problem. The objective of this study was to produce biodegradable plastic from banana peels as a substitute for the conventional plastic and to prove that the starch in the banana peel could be used in the production of the biodegradable plastic. Select the raw banana and peels were separated from the banana and cut into small uniform sized parts by food grade knife. The standard solution of 0.5%sodium metabisulphate was prepared by adding 0.95 gram into 100 ml of distilled water. The volume of the sodium metabisulphate was decided according to the availability of raw banana peels. The peels were soaked in the solution of Sodium metabisulphate for half an hour. When strained from the solution, the peels were ready for further heat treatment. The peels were then boiled in distilled water for 0.5 hour by gas burner. The boiled peels were then strained off of water and then subjected to partial drying in a cabinet dryer at a temperature of 60°C for 0.5 hour. This will remove the extra water which may increase the time in the process of The peels were ground by small home mixer grinder to a fine paste. The fine paste then kept for one night and excess water drained off. The amount of 25ml of banana peel starch was measured and placed in 500ml beaker. After that 3ml of acetic acid was added and the mixture was mixed using a glass stirring rod. And then 2ml of Glycerol was added to beaker. The mixture was stirred again. The mixture was poured into a petri dish and put in the oven at 110°C. It was baked for half an hour and we got the biodegradable banana plastic film.