Oil palm empty fruit bunch based microfibre cellulose reinforced starch biofoam

Abstract

The growing awareness of environmental challenges has promoted the development of bio-based materials for various applications. Starch-based biofoam has been considered as a potential candidate to substitute or replace polystyrene used for packaging. Nevertheless, solely biofoam based on starch is still lacking in mechanical properties, and thus requiring a reinforcing agent to meet the packaging specification. This paper investigates the effect of incorporating microfibre cellulose (MFC) as a reinforcing agent in starch-based biofoam in terms of chemical and mechanical properties and biodegradability. Large-scale MFC was successfully isolated from oil palm empty fruit bunch having the cellulose content at a minimum of 70%. The enhanced mechanical property of biofoam composite was successfully achieved with addition at only 7 % of MFC with the improved tensile strength of 177 % compared to the neat starch biofoam and 88% compared to commercially available Styrofoam made of polystyrene. Further, all the biofoam could be degraded 100% in the soil in 5 days, while no such degradation characteristic was observed for Styrofoam. Hence, we suggest that the oil palm empty fruit bunch based MFC reinforced starch biofoam is a potential candidate for safe, sustainable and biodegradable packaging.