Abstract:
The production and the use of plastics has increased significantly over the last 70 years to meet their ever increasing demand. There are two major setback on the production and the usage of plastics which are: production from the non-renewable source and non-degradable nature in the environment.
The research was aim at producing biodegradable plastics from agricultural wastes which are pineapple, plantain and cassava peels. The Substrate were used to produce Polyhydroxybutyrate using the bacillus cereus. The produced Polyhydroxybutyrates were characterized using Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy and Gas chromatography mass spectroscopy and compared with a standard Polyhydroxybutyrate bought. Furthermore, the Polyhydroxybutyrate was blended at different ratio with pure polyethylene and used polyethylene and each blends, were tested for mechanical properties, water uptake, anti-microbial efficiency, soil degradation, slurry degradation and X-ray diffraction. The yield result show that pineapple peels gave the highest yields 4.7g among the 3 substrate used. The produced polyhydroxybutyrates Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy and Gas chromatography mass spectroscopy analysis compared to polyhydroxybutyrate bought result showed that they are the same. The alkyl end of the molecules were seen at 7.948, 7.084, 8.620 and 10.620 on the chromatogram while it peaks at 1421cm-1 and 1480cm-1 representing -CH3 group on the Fourier transform infrared spectra confirming polyhydroxybutyrate. The different blends showed varieties of trend in the different properties that was measured. The result showed that the blend had properties different from ordinary polyhydroxybutyrate or ordinary polyethylene either used or new. The composites absorbed water as the day’s increases and no inhibition zone on the antimicrobial analysis. Degradability test revealed that both blend degrades with time although the blend with virgin low density polyethylene degrade faster than the used polyethylene in the soil degradation. X-ray diffraction showed that there was a big similarity in morphology between the composites with lower polyhydroxybutyrate concentration and the higher ones. At the end of the research, it was discovered that blending of polyhydroxybutyrate in certain proportion with polyethylene produced a usable biodegradable plastic.
