Fabrication and characterization of pandanus amaryllifolius fibre reinforced thermoplastic cassava starch beeswax composites

• Main Author: Zakuan, Nur Diyana
• Format: Thesis
• Language: English; English
• Published: 2022
• Subjects: T Technology (General); TP Chemical technology
• Online Access: http://eprints.utem.edu.my/id/eprint/26928/1/Fabrication%20and%20characterization%20of%20pandanus%20amaryllifolius%20fibre%20reinforced%20thermoplastic%20cassava%20starch%20beeswax%20composites.pdf; http://eprints.utem.edu.my/id/eprint/26928/2/Fabrication%20and%20characterization%20of%20pandanus%20amaryllifolius%20fibre%20reinforced%20thermoplastic%20cassava%20starch%20beeswax%20composites.pdf; http://eprints.utem.edu.my/id/eprint/26928/; https://plh.utem.edu.my/cgi-bin/koha/opac-detail.pl?biblionumber=122125

Starch is commonly used in order to substitute the usage of petroleum-based plastic for production of green and eco-friendly products. Cassava starch is the most abundantly found and could be a promising biopolymer matrix candidate. However, starch-based plastic possesses low mechanical properties and high-water affinity that limits its application. Hence, blending starch matrix with hydrophobic material such as beeswax could aid in providing excellent water barrier properties. Nevertheless, the blending method of thermoplastic cassava starch and beeswax (TPCS/BW) is insufficient to provide a good characteristic for biocomposite application due to the poor mechanical properties. Thus, reinforcement with natural fibre could be the best alternative. Pandanus amaryllifolius fibre (PAF), also known as pandan wangi is a tropical plant in Malaysia that is widely used for flavouring cuisines. Usually, the used Pandanus amaryllifolius leaves will be discarded as waste. Hence, characterization on the Pandanus amaryllifolius fibre (PAF) were carried out to examine its potential as reinforcement agent in starch matrix. Thermoplastic cassava starch/beeswax blends at 0, 2.5, 5 and 10 wt.% beeswax loading were successfully developed via the hot molding compression method. The finding shows physical properties especially in terms of water barrier were improved following the incorporation of beeswax. Even though the addition of beeswax has reduced the tensile strength, elongation and flexural strength but it is proved that tensile and flexural modulus showed significant improvement until 5 wt.% of beeswax loading. Furthermore, the incorporation of beeswax has shown the occurance of intermolecular interaction, improved thermal stability and shows the appearance of irregular and rough fractured surfaces via analysis of Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy, thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) and morphological surface analysis, respectively. Crystallinity value is dropped as beeswax is added. Besides that, chemical composition analysis has revealed PAF’s cellulose, hemicellulose and lignin content of 48.79%, 19.95% and 18.64% respectively. Analysis from FTIR and x-ray diffraction analysis confirms the presence of cellulose and amorphous substances in the fibre which is proven by morphology studies. Mechanical properties, moisture absorption rate and thermal stability temperature were found at 45.61±16.09 MPa, 6.00% and 210℃ respectively at diameter fibre diameter of 368.57±50.47