Abstract:
Synthetic, petroleum-based products are commonly used for food packaging applications,
resulting in pollution of the environment. This created a need to develop biodegradable
polymers and polymer-based films to maintain the utility of packaged materials, such as
providing protection, preventing moisture and oxygen transfers between food and the
surrounding package material for a defined period, to overcome the problems of synthetic
petroleum-based packaging materials. The peanut shell is a waste product from the peanut
industry that consists of cellulose and microcrystalline cellulose. It can be utilized to produce
a biodegradable packaging material. The study revealed the potential of agar bio-based films
containing cellulose and microcrystalline cellulose extracted from peanut shells. The
extraction of microcrystalline cellulose was carried out at specific optimum parameters.
Cellulose and microcrystalline cellulose films were made using the solution casting method.
Seven different packaging materials were prepared using peanut shell powder (1 and 2
percent), cellulose powder (1 and 2 percent), and microcrystalline powder (1 and 2 percent).
As a control, packaging film prepared from agar and glycerine alone was used. Properties
such as water solubility, swelling ratio, thickness and biodegradation rate were measured for
these packaging films by standard methods. Among the seven different packaging materials,
2% of microcrystalline cellulose incorporated packaging material exhibited significantly
(p<0.05) less water solubility (32.46% ± 1.95), higher degradation rate (41.49% ± 2.29) and
less swelling ratio (34.21% ± 0.15). The development of biodegradable packaging material
with 2% of microcrystalline cellulose can be used as an alternative to synthetic plastic to
reduce environmental pollution.
