Abstract:
The exponential growth of the human population has led to the accumulation of non-degradable waste materials across our
planet. Bioplastics synthesized from only starch have less mechanical strength and thermal stability and can be improved by
the addition of fllers. In this study, banana peel starch and banana pseudo-stem fber was used for the synthesis of bioplastic
flm. The optimum process variables for starch yield were 27.66 min and 37.92 °C temperature, which gives a 12.06% maxi mum yield. The extracted starch was characterized as pH (6.31), moisture (7.2%), loss on drying (11.2%), amylose (19.3%),
amylopectin (80.7%), and ash content (0.8%). For fber density (1.43 g/cm3
), yield (8%), moisture content (61.3%), water
absorptions (4.6%), and cellulose (55–60%) have been investigated. The cellulosic fber was employed as reinforcing mate rial to improve the produced flm physicochemical and mechanical characteristics. The flm was synthesized by conducting
20 experiments and analyzed by design expert 11 by considering three factors: dry oven temperature(35–65 °C), glycerol
concentration (20–50%)w/v, and fber concentration (5–20%) w/w of starch (5 g) basis. Three responses were tensile strength
(TS), water absorption (WA), and elongation at the break (EA) of the synthesized bioplastic flm. The result obtained in ranges
were 0.2–7.25 Mpa TS, 4.9–31.01% EA, and 18.6–35.3% WA. The obtained results at the optimal point were 7.23 Mpa TS,
5.46% EA, and 18.60% WA at a combination of 56.5 °C dry oven temperature, 28.6% glycerol, and 18.26% fber concentra tions. The flm is also characterized by TGA, DSC, and FTIR. This study indicates the incorporation of cellulosic fber as a
fller enhances the tensile strength, lowers water absorbent, and improves the thermal stability of starch-based bioplastic flm.
