Mechanical properties of bioplastic from pectin, carrageenan, and chitosan

• Main Authors: Muryeti, Permata, Hana, Ningtyas, Rina
• Format: Conference Proceeding
• Language: English
• Subjects: Bioplastics; Carrageenan; Chitosan; Composition; Elasticity; Elongation; Environmental impact; Mechanical properties; Packaging; Pectin; Soil mechanics; Soil pollution; Tensile strength; Variance analysis
• ISSN: 0094-243X; 1551-7616
• DOI: 10.1063/5.0229992

The use of plastic in society continues to increase, with a very high level of dependence on plastic as a packaging material. Therefore, the use of plastic as packaging material raises various environmental problems, including the difficulty of the recycling process and the accumulation of waste, which causes pollution and environmental damage because the plastic itself cannot be decomposed naturally by microbes in the soil. This problem needs a solution to develop plastics from natural materials which are eco-friendly, such as pectin and chitosan. The basic ingredients for making bioplastics in this research are pectin, carrageenan, chitosan, and glycerol. The aim of this study was to obtain the optimal composition, and analyze the characteristics of the bioplastics based on their mechanical properties. This research was started by the extraction of pectin from sweet orange peel, the preparation of bioplastics, testing the mechanical characteristics of bioplastics (tensile strength, elongation, and elasticity), and analyzing the variance of the test results using two-way ANOVA with IBM SPSS. The optimal composition of bioplastics for mechanical properties is 2.5 g pectin, and 1% chitosan, with a tensile strength of 4.638 MPa, elongation of 64.06% and elasticity of 0.0748 MPa.