Production of Biodegradable Plastic From Fruit Waste Free Essay Example

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Abstract

Plastics in all forms are the polymers of structurally different monomers and due to different structural properties and uses are also different. The sources of the plastic also vary means they could be natural or artificial. Our concern of the study is the production of plastic from natural or organic sources for example lignocellulosic (fruits and vegetables) wastes of some plants. Among fruit plants, most common are those from the banana peel, Orange peel, apple pomace is the most important one.

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These bioplastics can be used to make wide variety of materials like biocomposites, 3 D objects and biofilms. Most of the plastics obtained from organic sources have very high mechanical strength, flexibility, high impact withstanding capacities, biodegradable, and environment friendly. As pollution due to non-biodegradable materials is among most severe global issues so a step toward bioplastic could reduce this issue to nearly 40%. These bioplastics due to biodegradability can act as nutrient source for soil and increase its fertility. As annually large quantities of bio-waste (fruit and vegetables) are generated but proper disposal is also a problem but now we had find out the way to reuse them.

Some peels and fruit pulp are acidic and cause. The synthesis of plastic with significant durability, tensile strength, elasticity, thermoplastic properties and high impact bearing ability was our main purpose. Synthesis and characterization using modern techniques were done successfully.

Introduction

Although organic materials are among the most abundant materials on planet earth. The daily used clothes, shoes, eatables household items are mostly made from organic materials.

Still we waste large quantities of organic matter per year in the form of household garbage including fruit and vegetables waste. As we see plastic shopping bags spread all around us and these are non-biodegradable and causing damage to our environment by decreasing soil nutrient holding capacity. Plastic waste contributed for more than 25% of landfills [1] and it need to be minimized for making the planet human-friendly. As plastic use is economical and it is durable too so people use it commonly. Some of the plastics when discarded they release toxic substances in soil and air like those plastic containing Sulphur or iron and pollute soil and the atmosphere so a new solution to all these problems is to use the organic waste for the production of bioplastic whose properties differ from PVC PS PE. These bioplastics were biodegradable, environment friendly, cheap and can be used easily for every type of plastic based material. Biodegradability is the ability of a material to be broken down and converted to natural and useful substances by living organism such as bacteria fungi etc. [2]. Synthetic plastics are carcinogenic too because they contain some chemicals and their overuse causes cancer to a small percentage.

Today environment-friendly plastic products are gaining impotence in all the fields including medicine, industry, pharmaceutical industries, research labs due to less harm to the environment. Our priority is to provide ease and facilities to humans by conserving and preserving natural environment. Artificial plastics synthesized are non-renewable, harm the environment, decrease surviving ability of marine life [3]. Bioplastics like many of the other plastics can be recycled and reused. [4]

As all the plastics are polymers made from different monomers. Most of the plastics have carbon backbone so we can say that plastic are organic polymer. [5] The most important condition for a molecule to form a polymer is its ability to combine with two other molecules that may be chemically identical or different. In case of each of fruit waste like banana and orange peel and apple pomace we will get a plastic polymer after following specific procedure. The synthesized bioplastics then can be analyzed by using FTIR, NMR, Mossbauer spectroscopy or XRD analysis. [6,7,8] One of the shortcoming of bioplastic material is that they engorge more and swell and as a result is has limited use in various fields. Although these plastics are biodegradable but many of uses are affected due to this property like weather resistance. These synthesized bioplastics can be used in following are in shopping bags, utensils, Plastic pipe, mineral water and carbonated soft drink bottles, disposable tableware, food containers, and boxes for cosmetic packaging. [9,10]

Bioplastics produced by these methods can take up any form means they can be in the form of sheets or can be transformed in any other shape. Besides this the properties like elasticity, strength, dimensions, molecular weight are much better than those of artificial plastics. Packaging waste if properly managed can significantly decrease plastic pollution [11]. But these bioplastics can cause shortening of agricultural resources [12]. Starch proteins oils and fats are the common raw materials for bioplastics.

There were few problems associated with bioplastics like their service life. Most of them have short service life so we can try more in near future with greater service life by adding a good reinforcement. [13,14] Reinforcement is the material which when added to polymer matrix increase its strength and stiffness along with service life so further research could be on improving the strength and durability. [15]

Due to the importance of plastic in our lives we focused on the synthesis of plastics from organic wastes. Banana peel, Apple peel, Corn oil, apple pomace was used to prepare plastic. Special catalysts and polymerization techniques were followed to synthesize these plastics and then to check the physical properties like strength, durability, elasticity, dimensions and stability various analytical techniques were used. Almost all the synthesized plastics were cheap, versatile, and durable. One of the important and challenging property observed was their inactivity toward corrosive chemicals.