Physical properties and soil degradation of PLA/PBAT blends film reinforced with bamboo cellulose

Abstract

Cellulose is known as the most abundant organic molecule that is renewable and suitable to replace synthetic polymers in the production of plastics with a formula of (C6H1005)n. Cellulose from plants is the most excellent material for reinforcing fillers. The percentage of cellulose in bamboo is range 45-55%. In this research cellulose from bamboo were incorporated with PLA and PBAT to produce cellulose film. The cellulose film produced with different amount of cellulose which are 0%, 3%, 6% and 9%. The findings showed that PLA/cellulose with 9% content of cellulose showed a higher mass loss with 12.39%, followed by the PLA/PBAT/cellulose 9%, which was 9.69%. Meanwhile, the cellulose film with 0% cellulose content for both types of plastic showed the lower biodegradability of 0.57% (PLA/cellulose bioplastic) and 0.44% (PLA/PBAT/cellulose bioplastic). It shows that biodegradability in the natural environment is the benefits of the film with a high content of cellulose. This analysis revealed the degradation of cellulose film in the soil. Usually, conventional plastic cannot easily be biodegraded by the organisms. Based on this study, it is showed that the increase of the cellulose content also encourages the film to degrade quickly. It is thus revealed that the study on bamboo's cellulose, provides the scientific information for the application and implementation of bamboo cellulose as an effective biodegradable plastics.