Environmentally friendly bioplastic from renewable source

Plastics have become a major component in modern life but they are very slow to degrade, thus ultimately, become waste with high staying power. Therefore, finding biodegradable replacement with similar characteristics is of major importance. Various attempts were made to use degradable synthetic and natural biopolymers but the large production carbon footprint of the first and the poor mechanical and barrier properties of the latter require further research and development in order to improve the bioplastic performance.

The current research aims to explore the use of environmentally friendly polymer from renewable source as bioplastic material. More specifically, the research focused on the preparation of bioplastic film using hot extrusion followed by hot press and its comparison to polyethylene (PE) performance at the same conditions. The results include thermal, mechanical, and visco-elastic analyses of the prepared film with and without addition of edible environmentally friendly plasticizers and its comparison with PE. A clear shift from a thermoset to a thermoplastic behavior was recognized for the plasticized films. While, the plasticizer addition lead to different film properties with a significant decrease in thermal transition temperatures and enhanced film tensile strength. Moreover, the film potential barrier properties were evaluated using oxygen and water vapor transmission analyzers and contact angle where a significant effect was attributed to the plasticizer type. Overall, different plasticizers lead to different film characteristics implying on the ability to control the bioplastic properties using specific additives for specific applications.