A Study on the chemical and physical properties of bioplastic from Dioscorea hispida (Ubi Gadong) starch

Environment pollution caused by the long degradation of plastic waste has become a global environmental problem. One of the alternative ways to solve this problem is development of new plastic material from eco-friendly raw material. In the production of bioplastics, Dioscorea hispida (Ubi Gadong) starch shows great potential as a main ingredient source due to the high concentration of starch content. The purpose of this study is to extract and characterize the starch content from D. hispida tuber using chemical extraction method and enzymatic hydrolysis, respectively. The yield of starch content from the total mass of D. hispida tuber was 10.74%. While the starch concentration was 83.29% by using enzymatic hydrolysis. In this experiment, potential of D. hispida starch for bioplastic production at different ratio has also been investigated. The aspects that has been studied were contact angle analysis, water absorption, mechanical properties, biodegradability, and FTIR. Bioplastic with the highest glycerol level showed a very satisfactory results of physical, hydrophobicity, and biodegradability properties, while bioplastics with 3mL of glycerol content has the best mechanical properties. Bioplastic with the highest glycerol content gives 73.68% of water absorption. Complete degradation of bioplastic samples could be achieved on the 6th day of experimental. The FTIR analysis showed the presence of bioplastic component. The evaluation of the mechanical properties showed that the bioplastic containing 3 mL: 5g of glycerol: starch showed the highest tensile strength of 34 MPa and the maximum elongation of 6.580 mm.