Agricultural resources in focus: Eco-friendly bioplastic synthesis from corn starch

Abstract

The current research focuses on the development of bioplastics from agricultural resources like banana peels, potato peels and corn starch. The specific focus here is the utilization of agricultural resources into bioplastics as an eco-friendly alternative to conventional plastics. The main objective of this research is to explore the manufacturing of biodegradable plastics by utilizing these materials. The formation of bioplastics from banana and potato peels is not as successful, while notably consistent formation for bioplastics derived from corn starch. The additional research has been conducted on corn starch based bioplastic films. The impact of various glycerol amounts (0.2 g to 0.8 g) was studied concerning the measurement of tensile strength (1.52 MPa to 5.08 MPa) in corn starch-derived bioplastics. The physico-chemical properties, availability of FT-IR functional groups (C-O-H, O-H, C-H, C = O, CONH, C-O, and C-O-C) and SEM analysis are confirming bioplastic films surface derived from corn starch and compared to existing literature. Furthermore, the research includes solubility and biodegradability tests were determined the most suitable and preferred agricultural resources for biodegradable plastic production.