Development of Bioplastic from Corncobs to be a Guideline to Produce Biopolymers suitable for General Shopping Bags and Packaging Materials

Abstract

Polymers with many good properties, such as high durability, chemical resistance, and light weight, are a kind of convenience in our daily lives. However, these polymer materials, especially synthetic polymers rank the most environmental problems, taking 400-500 years or more to biodegrade. Another problem is that corncobs, also known as corn kernels, are the most common waste product of corn. Farmers tend to burn them, which creates smoke that damages the atmosphere, ecosystems, and public health in that area. It is estimated that 1.2 million tons of corncobs are wasted per year. Therefore, this project aims to study the properties of bioplastics from corncobs as a guideline for the production of suitable biopolymers for bags and packaging, using corn cobs as a starch source for bioplastics. Corn cobs, vinegar, glycerol, and water were boiled until they become thick. Then they were baked at 180 °C for 1 hour. After that, the properties such as tensile strength, density, water solubility and biodegradation of the three kind of plastic were tested. The results showed that bioplastic yield of 43.05 % w/w with the loss of 361.3 grams of solution. The obtained results showed that the bioplastic had high performance in the biodegradation test,was able to degrade more than 99% within 30 days. Thus can be concluded that the development of bioplastic is beneficial. However, solubility is limited.