SYNTHESIS OF POLYBLEND FROM SULFONATED POLYSTYRENE AND BACTERIAL POLYHYDROXYBUTYRATE AND ITS CHARACTERIZATIONS

• Main Author: DWI AMBARINI (NIM: 20508003), LELLY
• Format: Theses
• Language: Indonesia
• Online Access: https://digilib.itb.ac.id/gdl/view/12328
• Institution: Institut Teknologi Bandung

The increasing volume of plastics used has caused the increase plastic wastes in our environmental, which are usually made from non-biodegradable material. If it is not solved immediately, it can make environmental pollution. This problem has motivated many researches to make biodegradable polymers, such as modifying polymers that are used as plastic material with a biopolymer in order to obtain plastics which can be decomposed by microorganisms in environment. In this research, polystyrene (PS) obtained from styrofoam was sulfonated to be sulfonated polystyrene (PSS), and then blended with polyhydroxybutyrate (PHB) as a biopolymer. PS in this research was isolated from styrofoam, while the PHB was obtained commercially from PHB from Aldrich Chemical Inc. The first, PHB had been hydrolyzed in order to decrease its molecular weight. The sulfonation reaction was done to give polar group to PS, so that PS could be a homogeneous membrane with PHB, because PS and PHB have different polarity. The sulfonation degree of PSS synthesized in this research was 9.10%.