Bioplastics production from agricultural crop residues

Abstract

Bio-based plastics have a huge market and a wide range of applications and then have become increased in economy and research. Due to the environmental hazard on all organisms and the pollution that happens in all natural resources such as air, water, plants and soil pollution and the limitation of quantity of fossil resources on our planet, the future cannot depend on petro-plastics. All fossil products should be replaced by bio-based products. The petro-plastics are one of the fossil products which should be replaced by bio-based plastics. In this study, potato peels were used to produce bioplastics by the extraction of the starch from the peels and adding some ingredients such as water, glycerin, vinegar and industrial colors with different ratios and in biochemical reaction under heating. This process produced a wide range of bioplastics samples with different properties such as texture, hardness and coherence. It was found that when the glycerin ratio increases the produced bioplastic becomes more flexible and vice versa when the glycerin ratio decreases the produced bioplastic becomes hard. It was concluded that the bio-based materials can be used effectively to process bioproducts such as bioplastics.