Utilization of Lime Juice to Enhance Mechanical Performance of Sago-Starch Based Biofilm Reinforced Chicken Feather Keratin

Abstract

This research utilized natural resources, i.e., chicken feather keratin to reinforce sago-starch biodegradable film with glycerol as plasticizer and green lime juice’s citric acid as cross-linker. The objective of this research was to observe mechanical performance of biofilm based on several experiments with lime juice concentration, chicken keratin composition and sago-starch variables as independent variables (factors). This experiment was conducted using factorial design. The biofilm’s performances assessed by tensile strength and elongation at break, DSC, FTIR, and SEM analysis were investigated mechanical, thermal, structure and morphology properties of the biofilm. The result showed that lime juice can effectively improve the mechanical performance of the biofilm.