Hydrophobic properties of phytoplankton-enhanced tapioca starch biocomposites

Abstract Sustainable material production from renewable resources is currently popular. This is due to the increasing awareness of the community towards the environment. Various products have been developed with natural materials to replace conventional plastics. Alternative materials to replace conventional plastics that are environmentally friendly are readily available, such as tapioca starch. Starch is a natural polymer that is very abundant and promising as a food packaging material. Starch is also easily degraded, non-toxic, and inexpensive. However, starch has bad air barrier properties, low hydrophobicity. To reduce these weaknesses, phytoplankton can be added to pure starch films. This study has succeeded in seeing the hydrophobic properties that the transmittance value for O-H stretching increased after phytoplankton was added to tapioca starch. Meanwhile, the transmittance of O-H at a wavelength of 3292 cm −1 for 0 ml of Starch/PP film was 37.28%. While the addition of phytoplankton suspension, the O-H transmittance at a wavelength of 3292 cm −1 for 20 ml of Starch/PP film was 43.67%. In this case, the addition of phytoplankton suspension increased the transmittance value from 37.38% to 43.67%. This finding indicates that well-dispersed phytoplankton in the PVA matrix form stronger hydrogen bonds, increase the hydrophobic properties of the biocomposite, and reduce the free O-H content.