Synthesizing High Strength Biodegradable Polymer Film from Ethiopian False Banana Pseudo stem.

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.