Biocomposite of pectin and starch filled with nanocrystalline cellulose (NCC): The effect of filler loading and glycerol addition

Abstract

Biocomposite can be synthesized from biopolymer materials such as pectin. Pectin can be obtained from extraction process of orange peel waste. Orange peel waste is an agricultural waste which contains 42.5% pectin. The higher of pectin contents on orange peel waste can be used as matrix to increase the gelling, biodegradability tensile and physical properties based on starch biocomposite. The aim of this research is to find out the effect of nanocrystalline cellulose (NCC) and glycerol additions based on pectin-starch biocomposite. Casting solution method was used to produce pectin-starch biocomposite, with the variation amounts of 1-4 wt% nanocrystalline cellulose (NCC) and 10-40 wt% glycerol as plasticizer. The characteristics of biocomposite such as fourier transform infrared (FTIR), density, water vapor transmission rate (WVTR) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). It was found from fourier transform infrared (FTIR) that there are slightly sharper peaks of hydroxyl group (O-H) stretching, carbonyl group (C=O) and C-O-H group by the addition of NCC and glycerol. The optimum result of density was obtained at 2 wt% of nanocrystalline cellulose (NCC) and 30 wt% of glycerol content. The addition of nanocrystalline cellulose (NCC) would decrease the water vapor transmission rate (WVTR), but the higher of glycerol content, the higher of water vapor transmission rate (WVTR) of biocomposite. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) images showed a good dispersion of nanocrystalline cellulose (NCC) in the pectin-starch matrix. It was caused that pectin would act as compatibilizer to help glycerol on increasing physical interaction between pectin, starch and nanocrystalline cellulose (NCC).