Vol. 11, Special Issue 9 (2022)

Author(s):
Laya S, Dr. Shamina S and Dr. Moossa PP

Abstract:
Rice straw (Oryza sativa) is the stem of rice plant left after the grains is separated from harvested paddy. It has fairly high cellulose (37.71%) content. Reasonably high cellulose content has potential to be used as bio plastic material. This work was aimed to fabricate bio plastic from the rice straw, with addition of carboxymethyl cellulose (CMC) and glycerol. Straw was also cut into 2-3 cm length and being dried under the sun. Cellulose was separated by digestion and the bioplastic were produced by blending dried pulp with varying concentration of CMC, and glycerol (1.5-3 gram CMC and 1 ml -2 ml glycerol. /100 gm cellulose).Swelling test (both in water and oil) and biodegradability test were conducted to study the performance of the bioplastics. Effects showed that bioplastics were dissolved easily in water. Throughout oil swelling check, it showed that higher glycerol content material will increase the oil resistant function of the bioplastic. In the meantime, the CMC content material has no impact during the oil swelling check. The exceptional composition of the bioplastic is with the CMC and glycerol contents of 1.382% and 0.323% respectively, with the bottom oil swelling check end result of 68%. Biodegradability of the bioplastics is low at high CMC and glycerol contents. The first-rate composition with maximum weight loss of the bioplastics was achieved by the bioplastic with 0.469% of CMC content and 0.939% of glycerol.