Abstract:
Ethiopian false banana, locally known as “enset”, is an indigenous vegetable tree native to
southern Ethiopia and mainly utilized as food source. In this thesis work, we investigated the
possibility to use cellulose for bio-plastic production and its application for food packaging.
Enset contain about 67.63% of cellulose in dry weight base. Cellulose was extracted from enset
by combination of alkaline treatment by 1M NaOH and bleaching by H2O2 and the film were
produced by solution casting method. To improve the strength of the films POSS and chitosan is
added in different amount (10, 25. 35, 50, 75%) and glycerol is used as a plasticizer. The effect
of the fillers on the mechanical properties, morphological structure, biodegradability
Crystallinity and thermal stability were investigated. The increase of the fillers (POSS and
chitosan) content led to increase the films tensile strength and slightly thermal stability. But
when the content of POSS and chitosan increased to 75% tensile strength decreased. POSS and
chitosan did not change X-ray patterns of cellulose films however degree of crystallinity
increased at 50% POSS, and as the content of chitosan increase degree of crystallinity also
increase.
