Chapter II

Review of Related Literature

Plastic has been a highly valued material on earth for its usefulness. Plastics

contribute to our health, safety and peace of mind in our day to day life. Plastics are

synthetic or semi-synthetic materials which are typically polymers of high molecular

mass obtained from petroleum and natural gas. The phenomenal rise in the usage of

plastics is due to their low cost and better properties which include flexibility, rigidness,

brittleness, and ability to be molded into variety of shapes and lighter (Stevens, 2002).

The history of plastics goes back more than 100 years. The first semi-synthetic plastic

material used was celluloid which was used in the manufacture of billiard balls and later

it was used in photographic films.

Furthermore, majority of plastic produced nowadays, fall into petro-plastic

category, which is non-energy product of petroleum chemicals. This type of plastic is

considered as non-biodegradable or takes a long times to be decomposed to nature.

It was also reported in the study of Gluszynski (1997) that the conventional

plastics, manufactured from fossil fuels such as oil, coal and natural gas, not only

consume non-renewable and finite resources, but also contribute heavily to the global

problem of waste disposal. Thus it take at least 50 years for them to break down and

there is a limit on developing biodegradable materials to alleviate the plastic waste

disposal problems (Fang et al, 2004).

According to (Ramasamy et al., 2015), these plastics are organic polymers and

most of the plastics are derived from petrochemicals. The major challenge with plastics
is their degradability and will take many centuries. It is one of the pollution causing

agents in the earth. Hence, it is necessary to finding the new types of plastics with

easily degradable and environmental friendly nature. The organic renewable biomass

can be utilized for the production of plastics and these eco-friendly plastics are called as

bioplastics. The advantages of the bioplastics are numerable and most important

property is their quick degradability. Bioplastics utilization will help to reduce the

massive emission of CO2 from the fossil fuel and also preserve the fossil resource.

Recently, the interest of feedstock for bioplastic is marine algae as an alternative raw

material. The important factors include their rapid growing capabilities up to 20 % per

day, easy cultivation and vast diversity. Development of raw material from marine algae

can ensure a sustainable raw material for producing plastics. The moisture barrier

content of plastic film derived from red algae agar displayed is better than cassava

starch-based plastics and their mechanical properties were also similar to some low-

density polyethylene plastics. The algae based bioplastic production is in infancy stage

and rapid research is needed to commercialize and expand their utilizations.

On the other hand, getting rid of the plastics is very difficult because burning of

these plastics leads to harmful chemicals such as dioxins which contribute to global

warming (Mary and Prieto, 2007; Song et al., 2009). Moreover recycling of plastics is

difficult because different kinds of plastic has to be recycled by different processes and

also involves high cost as the value of the material is low. Other limitations of plastics

include release of toxic chemicals and carcinogens during manufacturing and also

during incineration process resulting in pollution which in turn affects human health

causing endocrine disruption, cancer, immune system suppression and various side
effects. Although plastics are considered to be one of the greatest innovations ever,

they also impose harmful effects to the environment and humans as mentioned above.

The global production capacity of bioplastics is estimated to be 327,000 tonnes and

global consumption is around 12.3 million tonnes. This indicates that demand for the

bioplastics is more compared to its production thus not meeting the requirements for

their usage and it is still in infancy. It is estimated that the bioplastics industry could be

worth $20 billion by 2020 (Beacham, 2010).

For several years there has existed interest in developing biodegradable plastic

from vegetable materials which are generally made from corn starch, potato starch,

chickpea and other starches. These biodegradable plastic generally include the addition

of other materials which act to enhance polymerization, chemical cross linking, or

flexibility. The demand of biodegradable plastic product has been increased especially

in packaging industry. According to Arvanitoyannis (1999), the continuous increasing

extent of pollution of the environment has recently give raised to demands for novel

biodegradable polymers, mainly for applications relates to food packaging and

agriculture. Many things have been proposed as biodegradable alternative such as

starch film, blood-meal and etc. However, these largely starch based materials are often

not well-suited for many applications of solid packing foam because of their relatively

rapid break down under wet conditions, and their inherently low breaking strength

(Tarrant et al, 1994).

Changes in global temperature and ocean chemistry associated with increasing

greenhouse gas concentrations are forcing widespread shifts in biological systems. In

response to warming, species ranges are shifting toward the poles, up mountainsides,

and to deeper ocean depths (Parmesan and Yohe 2003, Perry et al. 2005).

Seaweeds are ecologically important primary producers, competitors, and

ecosystem engineers that play a central role in coastal habitats ranging from kelp

forests to coral reefs. Although seaweeds are known to be vulnerable to physical and

chemical changes in the marine environment, the impacts of ongoing and future

anthropogenic climate change in seaweed dominated ecosystems remain poorly

understood. In this review, we describe the ways in which changes in the environment

directly affect seaweeds in terms of their physiology, growth, reproduction, and survival.

We consider the extent to which seaweed species may be able to respond to these

changes via adaptation or migration. We also examine the extensive reshuffling of

communities that is occurring as the ecological balance between competing species

changes, and as top-down control by herbivores become stronger or weaker. Finally,

we delve into some of the ecosystem level responses to these changes, including

changes in primary productivity, diversity, and resilience. Although there are several key

areas in which ecological insight is lacking, we suggest that reasonable climate-related

hypotheses can be developed and tested based on current information. By strategically

prioritizing research in the areas of complex environmental variation, multiple stressor

effects, evolutionary adaptation, and population, community, and ecosystem-level

responses, we can rapidly build upon our current understanding of seaweed biology and

climate change ecology to more effectively conserve and manage coastal ecosystems

(Christopher D. G. 2012).
 According to Machmud,. M.N, et.al 2013, the handmade sheets of bioplastics

which were prepared into strips were soaked into water for 24h by setting the water to

the sheets ratio at 3. Gelation formation formed during soaking of the bioplastics was

then boiled up to 120°C. This latter temperature was slowly further switched down and

finally maintained at 80°C for 15 minutes. Study on characteristics of red algae

bioplastics derived from Eucheuma cottonii under tension which includes study of

potential role of the tropical plants latex on physical and mechanical properties of the

red algae bioplastics have been done. Roles of glycerol on the physical and mechanical

properties of the red algae bioplastics were also studied. From physical properties of the

red algae bioplastics, it was revealed that glycerol determined their degree of opacity

and use of an amount of glycerol increased an amount of air in their mixtures which led

to a decrease of thickness and density of the bioplatics. Latex of Artocarpus altilis and

Calostropis gigantea, meanwhile, did not play a significant role on the physical

properties of the red algae bioplastics. Evaluation work on the mechanical properties of

the red algae bioplastics carried out under a tensile test performed at room temperature

pointed out that incorporating the red algae bioplastics with glycerol did not improve

their ductility and glycerol even contributed in reducing their tensile strength and energy

absorption. In vise versa, however, although blending the red algae bioplastics with the

tropical plants latex reduced their ductility, use of the selected latex relatively improved

their tensile strength and energy absorption. Due to the complexities of chemical

composition in the selected latex, tensile strength of the red algae bioplastics blended

with the selected latex was more superior to the others and even to that of starch-based

plastics. Blending with the tropical plants latex is hence recommended for the red algae
bioplastics so that they could be tailored to fit any particular requirements in many

applications of bioplastics.

According to Saodah Binti Ali, the red algae contain a large quantity of polymer

protein and carbohydrates which is about 50 to 70 percent of its composition. Algae can

be produced as a plastic by manipulating or doing structural changes to the polymer

structure of the algae which is called as protein denaturation process. In a protein

denaturation, the chemical agents; the combination of sodium dodecyl sulfate, SDS,

sodium sulfite and urea were used to unfold the complex structure of protein polymer of

algae. The procedures that involved in this production of plastic from sea algae were

cutting, compounding, drying, and hot pressing. During compounding, the additives

were added such as starch, fiber and plasticizer. The plastic was produced by using hot

press machine at different temperature ranging from 110 degree Celsius to 80 degree

Celsius and pressure is less than 10MPa. As the result obtained, formulation of sample

with starch addition shows best performance which shows almost like a plastic

characteristics. As a conclusion, a lot of works need to be done in order to produce

better result, so that the plastic with the best characteristic can be produced.

The degradation of synthetic polymer film can be accelerated by incorporating

starch as filler (Chandra et al, 1998).

According to (Vijaiyan et al., 2018), there are possibility of separating natural

fibers from two invasive plants Chromolaena Odorata and Mikania micrantha. These

two are considered as high-risk species on the basis their invasiveness and being a

menace to the natural biodiversity. Water retting and alkali extraction methods were
used for the separation of stem fibers. Fibers obtained showed similar properties to

currently used common fibers.

Chromolaena Odorata extract presented in the biopolymer fibers form with no

chemical reaction together. The addition of C. Odorata extract was also found to reduce

the viscosity. Mechanical measurement showed that C. Odorata extract enhanced

tensile stress (Manotham, Supalak et al., 2018).

The production of plastics amounts to about 150 million tons per year and

displays an upward trend (Okada, 2002). Algae serve as an excellent feedstock for

plastic production owing to its many advantages such as high yield and the ability to

grow in a range of environment. Algal bioplastics are referred as plastics produced from

algal biomass or by using algal materials. The algal bioplastic are easily biodegradable

than compared to commercial plastics. The direct algal biomass usage for algal

bioplastics is responsible for biodegradation. Algae based plastics have been a recent

trend in the era of bioplastics (Greg stevens, 2010).

Red Algae are chosen as the chosen as the species to be used as the raw

material for the production of plastics form marine algae. This is because Red Algae

have the high amount of amino acids which act as the building blocks for the formation

of protein which makes it also a natural polymer was found in the species belong to

Rhodophyta ( Red Algae ) as compared to Phaeophyta and Chlorophyta (Nirmal et al.,

2010).

According to (Gonzales et al, 2009), found out that in order for the formation of

protein based bioplastics; there are three most essential steps for it to occur. Then the
three steps are the, stabilized intermolecular bonds are break of, mobile polymer chains

are oriented in the desired shape and finally allowing the formation of new

intermolecular bonds that strengthen the three dimensional network.

According to (K. Oksman et al., 2003), PLA works very as matrix material for

natural fiber composites. The mechanical properties of PLA and flax fibre composites

are promising. The composite strength is about 50% better compared to similar PP/flax

fibre composites, which are used today in many industrial applications. The stiffness of

PLA is increased from 3.4 to 8.4 GPa with an addition of 30 wt.% flax fibre.

In the study of (Jianlei Yang, 2019), the structures and properties of

Lignocellulosic fibers and lignin are characterized. Their recent advances and issues in

making bioplastics are elaborated comprehensively. The lignin has reinforcements can

produce bioplastic with high performance. Lignin has possibility to function as a

plasticizer, stabilizer or bio-compatibilizer. In bioplastics which will produce different

properties on bioplastics.

According to (Igboh M. Ngozi et al., 2009) Chromolaena Odorata is a source of

high quality protein which could serve as a potential source of protein supplement.