Production of Agar-Agar and Sago based Bioplastic

Abstract

Abstract: Plastic garbage is the world's third-largest waste source, posing a threat to human health and the environment. Because of their outstanding barrier properties, stiffness, tensile strength, and rip strength, petrochemical plastics have long been used as packaging materials. Plastics have a lot of disadvantages, including a low water vapour transmission rate, nonbiodegradability, and other difficulties that lead to environmental degradation. Newer solutions for the use of bio-plastics have emerged, all while keeping pollution and environmental harm in mind. Bio-plastics are primarily made from biological resources such as potatoes, potato peels, corn, sugarcane, wheat, and rice, as well as seaweed-based bioplastics including varied proportions of agar-agar, seaweed, starch, or cellulose, as well as plasticizers and their relative impact on physical-properties, and the bioplastic characteristics. Replacing petroleum plastic with bioplastic is an alternate strategy to reduce plastic waste in human life while also being more environmentally friendly. As a result, the goal of this research is to gelatinize agar-agar and sago powder to make bioplastic and analysis of its properties. Unlike earlier investigations, this one looked at and evaluated new bioplastic formulations with varying ratios of agar-agar and sago to glycerol samples of 1:0.5, 1:1, and 2:1, referred to as Sets A, B, and C, respectively. The bioplastic samples (Sets A to C) with varying ratios of Agar-Agar and Sago powder to glycerol were found to have higher biodegradable qualities when the ratio of Agar-Agar and Sago powder to glycerol was 1: 1 (Set B) and It had the smallest capacity for holding water. According to the findings, Set B could only hold only 5.48 percent of the water, preventing water from interacting with the wrapped contents. In addition, as compared to other samples, Set B appears to deteriorate better in soils and dissolve more in ethanol, acetone, and oils. Set B has the potential to be employed as a fertilizer coating or other related packaging to reduce the usage rate of the petrochemical plastic since the bioplastic can decay naturally by the ethanol produced by bacteria in soils under anaerobic reactions. Keywords: Bioplastic, Glycerol, Agar-Agar, Sago Powder, Gelatinization, Biodegradable