The effect of glycerol and citric acid deep eutectic solvent concentration on the properties of carboxymethyl cellulose (CMC) bioplastic / Kamal Nor Ariff Kamal Nazry

Petroleum-based plastics have been popular due to their strong and longlasting properties. However, these plastics are not degrading easily, prompting researchers to develop bioplastics. Cellulose is one of the best choices for bioplastics production. Nevertheless, the created cellulose-based biodegradable films were stiffed due to the strong hydrogen bonds between cellulose chains and limits their use as a bioplastic. In this study, carboxymethyl cellulose (CMC) was used as an alternative source to synthetic plastic for the production bioplastics with glycerol/citric acid deep eutectic solvent (DES) as a plasticizer. Four bioplastic samples were prepared: CMC without plasticizer and CMC with glycerol: citric acid DES at different ratio (i.e., 100:1, 100: 2 and 100:3). The properties of these bioplastic samples were then investigated. Result shown that the tensile strength and Young’s modulus decreased in the range of 41.19 to 0.25MPa and 2369 to 1.35MPa respectively, meanwhile elongation at break shows increasing trend from 4.75 to 19.00mm. The thickness bioplastics also in the range of 0.34 to 0.09mm. The water solubility was found in the range of 100 to 37.67%, whereas the moisture content and water absorption were 36.12 to 29.63% and 44.52 to 22.23% respectively. In addition, it was observed that using DES as a plasticizer had affected CMC biodegradability in soil by reducing the weight lost in range from 100% to 54.13% and slowed the degradability within 30 days. Therefore, these CMC bioplastics with DES could be a potential food packaging.