A Sustainable Approach for the Development of Cellulose-Based Food Container from Coconut Coir

The increasing demand for sustainable resources has revived the research on cellulose over the last decades. Therefore, the current research focused on the synthesis of biopolymers for the development of viable tableware utensils from cellulose of coconut coir. The synthesized biopolymer was characterized by using Fourier transform infrared (FT-IR) spectroscopy, thermogravimetric analysis (TGA), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), X-ray diffraction (XRD), tensile strength, and contact angle. The synthesized biopolymer was converted to workable conditions through incorporation of starch, as a binder, at various ratios with cellulose, ranging from 1:9 to 10:0. Moreover, the most prominent features of the synthesized biopolymer were obtained by the addition of glycerin as a plasticizer and citric acid as a cross-linker. At 6:4 ratio of cellulose and binder showed excellent mechanical properties, and with the incorporation of cross-linker, the biopolymer possessed high tensile strength (18.6 MPa) and elongation (3.5%) in comparison to commercially available polystyrene polymer (1.5 MPa) and (2.6%), respectively. Furthermore, the cross-linker citric acid bestows with network structure that was confirmed with the change of contact angle (81°), FT-IR spectra, surface morphology, crystallinity index, and water vapor transmission rate (573 g/m²/d). TGA data revealed the improved thermal properties of the biopolymer, and the decomposed temperature was elevated from >223 to 238 °C in the presence of network structure proved by cross-linker. The degree of deterioration was assessed by soil burial test, highlighting the environmental compatibility of the tableware. The purpose of the study was to synthesize sustainable tableware from waste source coir fiber for the reduction of harmful effects of synthetic counterpart.