Preparation and Physicochemical Characterization of Bioplastics from Vegetables Waste/PVA and Coating with Polyeugenol

Plastic waste is increasingly piling up, because plastic waste is not easily destroyed by rain and sun or microbes that live in the soil, thereby increasing environmental damage such as soil pollution. One solution to overcome the problem of using plastic is bioplastic technology. This study aimed to preparation and characterization physicochemical of bioplastics from different vegetable wastes such as green spinach, water spinach and moringa. The preparation of bioplastics is carried out with two variants, vegetable waste as the base material /PVA and coating with polyeugenol. Physicochemical analysis of bioplastics includes surface observation by SEM; crystallinity by XRD; identification of functional groups by FTIR; thermal characteristics analysis by TGA, DTA and DSC; and analysis of mineral composition by AAS. Analysis by SEM shows that the smoothest surface is water spinach/PVA coating with polyeugenol compared with other vegetable waste. Characterization results show that the obtained bioplastic has a good heat resistance up to 200oC. XRD shows that coated with polyeugenol increases the crystallinity and the highest crystallinity value is moringa/PVA coated with polyeugenol. Infrared spectroscopy results show the presence of C-H alkanes, C=O carboxylic acids, OH alcohols and C-H alkenes and the spectra are similar between green spinach, water spinach and moringa. Analysis by AAS showed that the bioplastic produced contained some micro and macronutrients including Ca, Cu, Fe, K, Mg, Mn, Na and Ni and only moringa has not found the mineral Cu. Thus, bioplastic from vegetables waste/PVA and coating with polyeugenol were potentially used as mulch and packaging material.