ACLC College of Tacloban

Senior High School Department

ALTERNATIVE USE OF CORN STARCH BASED TO FORM DECOMPOSABLE

PACKAGING MATERIALS PLASTIC IN TARCELA [Link]

TACLOBAN CTY

A Quantitative Research Presented to the Faculty of the Senior

High School Department of Science, Technology, Engineering and

Mathematics

AMA Computer Learning Center

Tacloban City

A Research Proposal

Submitted in Partial fulfillment

Of the Course Practical Research 2

Abarondo, Leah Mae Balais, Sean Rondulph Marl

Daclizon, Rea Rose Duran, Elijah

Silao, Ma. Clarisa Villaflor, Jhen Darlene

Gonzales, Geomar Ranes, Jessamin

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Foreign Literature

Bakelite, the first fully synthetic plastic, was invented by

Leo H. Baekeland in 1907, marking the beginning of the

“plastic age”. From then, plastic has evolved into an

indispensable part of people’s lives (Crespy, Bozonnet, &

Meier, 2008). Plastic packaging is widely used in the

protection and preservation of foods, cosmetics, medicines,

and chemicals. But plastics have poor biodegradability. The

poor biodegradability of plastics is due to the nature of the

monomers and covalent bonds between them, which means they

cannot be degraded by common physical, chemical or enzymatic

processes occurring in nature. As a result, plastic waste is

typically disposed of by burying or burning, thereby causing

pollution of land, water, and air that threaten human health

and ecological environment. Plastic has grown at a compound

annual rate of 8.4% since its mass production in 1950. Global

plastic production reached around 348 million tons in 2017,

which is almost 174 times higher than that in generated in

1950 (Gibb, 2019). The production of plastics mainly comes

from petrochemical engineering, which relies heavily on non-

renewable petroleum resources. Therefore, the massive

production of plastic not only causes serious pollution to the

global environment, but also accelerates the depletion of

petroleum resources.
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Plastic is reported to be a widespread pollutant in water

sources, accounting for 60–95% of marine waste. (Schnurr et

al., 2018). And it’s estimated that around 8 trillion

microbeads are released into wastewater every day (Schnurr et

al., 2018). These plastics particles are getting into the

bodies of marine animals and are passing along the food chain,

even being found in larval fish (Gove et al., 2019).

Plastics have also been reported to contaminate soil, whose

health is critical for the production of livestock and crops

critical for human food security. Analysis of 29 flooded areas

in Swiss nature reserves showed that 90% of floodplain soils

contained microplastic contaminants (Scheurer & Bigalke,

2018). Other studies have shown that microplastics in soil can

be transferred to soil organisms (including worms or insects)

and have harmful effects on their bodies (Chae & An, 2018).

These microplastics may then be passed up the food chain when

these smaller organisms are consumed by larger ones (such as

birds and rodents).

Over the past decade growing demands for a healthier life by

consumers has stimulated research on the relationship between

the environment and human health. The presence of plastics in

fish has been shown to cause damage to their livers (Rochman,

Hoh, Kurobe, & The, 2013) and immune systems (Limonta et al.,

2019). In addition, a variety of additives in plastics have

been shown to have serious effects on human health. They may

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lead to human reproductive abnormalities and disruption of the

endocrine and immune system, and even promote adult diabetes,

early puberty, obesity and other chronic diseases (Kumar,

2018).

One of the most effective strategies to reduce the problem of

plastic pollution is to develop biodegradable materials that

can replace it. At present, research on biodegradable

materials mainly focuses on synthetic and natural polymers.

Many synthetic polymers, including polylactic acid (PLA),

polyvinyl alcohol (PVA), polycaprolactone (PCL), polybutyl

succinic acid-butyl adipate (PBSA) and polyadipate butylene

terephthalate (PBAT), are widely used biodegradable materials

in daily life. In addition, a number of natural polymers are

being used as raw materials for constructing biodegradable

materials, such as proteins (whey protein, soy protein, silk

fibroin), polysaccharides (chitosan, cellulose, starch), and

lipids (beeswax, lauric acid). Among the natural biodegradable

materials, starch-based biodegradable materials are widely

studied and applied. This is because starch is naturally

abundant, low cost, non-toxic, renewable, biocompatibility and

can form films. Moreover, the polyhydroxy structure of starch

makes it easy to modulate its structure and functional

properties using chemical or enzymatic methods.

According to Chen & Zhang (2019) starch is a polymer

consisting of long chains of glucose molecules held together

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by glycosidic linkages, and therefore has a chemical formula

of (C6H10O5)n. At the molecular level, starch is composed of

two main polymeric constituents and these are Amylose, a

straight chain polymer of D-glucose unit and Amylopectin, a

branched chain polymer of D-glucose unit, whose properties and

ratios vary depending on the source.

Local Literature

Plastics are a vital role today in both industries and our

household appliances. Plastics are very useful in many reasons

such as food packages, bottle labels, convenience store,

cigarette pack film, confectionary packages, dress materials,

etc.

In today’s generation, because of its inherent

biodegradability, abundance, and annual renewability, starch

is one of the most promising natural polymers. Because of

their low material cost and ability to be processed with

conventional plastic processing equipment, starches provide a

very appealing low cost base for new biodegradable polymers.

Since the well-known issues of oil scarcity and growing

interest in reducing the environmental burden caused by the

widespread use of petrochemically-derived polymers, the

development and applications of biodegradable starch-based

materials have received increased attention. Currently, an

increasing number of countries have implemented regulations

and bans on disposable plastics.

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Because of the unique microstructures, particularly the high

molecular weight and hydrogen bonds, thermal processing of a

starch requires a number of chemical and physical reactions,

including water diffusion, granule expansion, gelatinization,

decomposition, melting, and crystallization. In which the

gelatinization is distinct and significant because it is

closely related to the others. The decomposition temperature

of starch is lower than its melting temperature prior to

gelatinization. As a result, conventional plastic equipment,

particularly extruders, cannot be used to thermally process

starch-based materials. TPS (thermoplastic starch) is a

gelatinized starch-based material.