Norhafezah Kasmuri, Mohamad Hakimi Maidin, Muhammad Safwan Abu Zait and Nur Aliah Ahmad Tarmizi
Keywords: egg shells, chitosan from shrimp shells, cornstarch, bio-plastic.
Abstract: Plastic or polymer is light and durable but hard to degrade, which harms the environments. The existing plastic needs to be replaced with bio-plastic, which can be produced from renewable biomass such as corn. Corn contains a high amount of starch, suitable raw materials to produce bio-plastic. Hence, this research attempted to produce bio-plastics using cornstarch. Three ingredients were used, which were corn starch-based bio-plastic (a control), cornstarch with egg shells and the third was cornstarch with chitosan from shrimp shells. Then their mechanical properties, water absorption, and biodegradability were tested. The result showed that the cornstarch-based bio-plastic with chitosan from shrimp shells as fillers was the best bio-plastic among the three. It produced 0.003 N/mm2 tensile strength and 0.014 N/mm2 of Young’s Modulus. İts water absorption was 20%. While the cornstarch with egg shells and the cornstarch-based bio-plastic showed water absorptions of 22% and 26%, respectively. The corn starch-based bio-plastic with chitosan filler’s weight decreased 63% when buried in the compost soil after 20 days. While the cornstarch with egg shells and the only corn starch-based decreased only 57% and 69%, respectively. İt can be concluded that the eggshells, which contained a high amount of calcium carbonate and chitosan from shrimp shells, had improved the properties of cornstarch-based bio-plastic.