SYNTHESIS AND CHARACTERIZATION OF BIOPLATIC FROM CASSAVA PEEL’S STARCH USING GLYCEROL AS PLASTICIZER

Bioplastic is a biodegradable and environmentally friendly material because it uses natural materials in the form of plant fibers. The plants with high fiber content can be converted to starch as a raw material for bioplastics. Cassava peel is a biomass waste that has the potential to be a raw material for bioplastics. In this study, the manufacture of bioplastics used the starch from cassava peels with variations of plasticizer concentration. Glycerol was used as plasticizer with variations in concentration of 0%, 1%, 3%, and 5%. Bioplastics were produced by adding variations of plasticizers in each concentration which were achieved varying values in tensile strength, water absorption, elongation values, Young’s modulus and degradability, The best bioplastic result is bioplastic with 3% Glycerol concentration for water absorption of 26.5%, tensile strength of 5.5 Mpa, elongation (tensile strain) of 2.35%, and Young’s modulus of 10 Mpa. Thus, the addition of 3% of glycerol in the bioplastic proves to be the most effective compared to other concentration and has the potential to be used to replace current synthetic plastic.