INDUSTRIAL PRE-DESIGN OF BANANA STEM-BASED BIODEGRADABLE PACKAGING WITH CHITOSAN LAMINATION FOR PACKAGING OF FRUITS AND DRIED FOOD PRODUCTS

• Main Author: Farras Fikri, Shiddieqie
• Format: Final Project
• Language: Indonesia
• Online Access: https://digilib.itb.ac.id/gdl/view/77031
• Institution: Institut Teknologi Bandung

Banana stems are one of the most neglected biomass wastes. Production of paper with banana stem fibres is an alternative utilization of banana stem waste. Along with the times, the need for environmentally friendly products and materials is increasingly needed to maintain ecosystem sustainability. Tapioca starch and gum arabic are two materials that can be used as environmentally friendly paper adhesives and have the potential to improve paper characteristics. This study aims to analyse the effect of the concentration of tapioca adhesive and gum arabic on the characteristics of banana stem paper and determine the most optimal concentration. There were 5 variations of adhesive concentration treatment, namely 2% (P2), 4% (P4), 6% (P6), 8% (P8), and 10% (P10). This research consisted of several stages which included drying the banana stems, delignification process, paper making, and testing the paper characteristics which included grammage, density, water absorption, and tensile strength tests. The results showed that increasing the adhesive concentration increased the grammage value and decreased the tensile strength of the banana leaf paper but showed no significant difference in its density and water absorption. The average value of the test results for grammage parameters ranged from 0.01930 g/cm2 to 0.02270 g/cm2; densities range from 0.36134 g/cm3 to 0.39730 g/cm3; water absorption ranged from 0.07824 g/cm2.minute to 0.09376 g/cm2.minute; and tensile strength ranging from 3.72 MPa to 11.03 MPa. The 2% concentration treatment is the most optimal treatment because it gives the highest tensile strength and density values and the lowest grammage and meets SNI standards. However, further research is needed to reduce its water absorption.