Effect of banana peel waste concentration and mixing rate to the tensile strength of polyvinyl alcohol/banana peel waste composite film: optimization study via statistical tool

<jats:title>Abstract</jats:title>
<jats:p>Plastic bags are essential in human’s life on a daily basis. Most of the packaging materials used today are petroleum based manufactured polymers which are non-biodegradable. These polymers contribute to the landfill and take millions of years to decay. Decomposition of these plastics would also release harmful gases into the environment. On the other hand, readily available degradable plastics are expensive. Therefore, the purpose of this research is to produce a biodegradable film as a substitution for the commercial biodegradable plastics to overcome such problem. A series of biodegradable polymer films derived from polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) embedded with banana peel waste (BPW) was prepared by solution casting method. The BPW was introduced as a promoter of biodegradability of the PVA. It was found that as the amount of BPW increases, the colonies of the fungal growth on the film showed a corresponding increase, indicating higher biodegradability of the PVA composite film. The blended films with different compositions of BPW were evaluated for their tensile properties using one-factor-at-a-time (OFAT) technique and hence optimized via response surface methodology (RSM). The tensile strength of the PVA/BPW films (32.52–46.97 MPa) was found to be lower than those of unfilled PVA film (80.30 MPa). The best composition of BPW filler in this study was found to be 5.1% with respect to PVA and it is compatible to be used as a film in daily uses.</jats:p>