The concept of biodegradable plastics is of considerable interest with respect to solid waste accumulation. Greater efforts have been made in developing degradable biological materials without any environmental pollution to replace the traditional plastics. Among numerous kinds of degradable polymers, polycaprolactone sometimes called PCL, an aliphatic polyester and biocompatible thermoplastic, is currently a most promising and popular material with the brightest development prospect and was considered as the ‘green’ eco friendly material. The application for this biodegradable plastic includes controlled drug releases, tissue engineering, bone scaffolds, packaging and, compost bags etc. This review will provide information on current PCL development, material properties of PCL and its composites, and also its wide spectrum applications.

Heavy metals have become a serious pollutant in water as a result of its non-biodegradable and toxicity properties. In this research, banana peel was synthesized as bioadsorbent to remove heavy metals from contaminated water. The major problem associated with banana peel bioadsorbent is that the activated carbon produces from biomass materials possess insignificant adsorption capability compared to its commercial counterpart. Besides that, large quantity of banana peel wastes contributes to its significant disposal problem. Thus, the present work is expected to solve the problems of banana peel disposal by converting it into bioadsorbent. The objectives of this research are to synthesize banana peel bioadsorbent and to evaluate heavy metals adsorption performance of the banana peel bioadsorbent. The bioadsorbent were treated using KOH in its preparation. The materials then undergo characterization using FTIR and AAS. The carboxylic and hydroxyl functional groups were confirmed by FTIR. The maximum removal efficiency for Pb and Fe ions were 100% and 64% respectively. The comprehensive utilization of low-cost raw material as bioadsorbent in wastewater activities are highly suggested due to its facile processing, abundantly available and environmental friendly.

Nowadays, the application of portable electronics devices such as smartphone, notebook and tablet playing important role in daily life. This portable electronic devices required portable powering sources such as battery. However, the current battery technology containing liquid electrolyte which is hazardous and harmful when leaking. Therefore, the major purpose of this study was to propose a new biodegradable, safe and low cost solid polymer electrolyte (SPEs) mainly from Methylcellulose (MC) doped Ammonium Nitrate (AN). The study was conducted by using casting method as it is the most appropriate technique due to its simplicity and low cost. Methylcellulose (MC) as the host was doped with different weight percentage (wt%)of Ammonium Nitrate (AN) to fabricate SPEs. The result shows the adding of AN onto MC was significantly enhanced the physical properties of SPEs. The loading of 2g MC with 25% AN (MC2_25AN) yield the highest conductivity at 3.5 × 10−7 Sm−1 at room temperature. Furthermore, the MC2_25AN poses a good stability with the lowest swelling rate. Therefore, the use of low cost and biodegradable MC and AN have a great potential to replace the hazardous electrolyte in electrochemical powering sources.

Accumulation of heavy metals in water is of particularly important because it can impact upon human health through possible contamination of food. The use of banana peel was investigated. Hydrothermal carbonization (HTC) was chosen as alternative process. The objective of this project is to synthesize banana peel hydrochars adsorbent via HTC process and to evaluate the heavy metals adsorption performance of banana peel hydrochars adsorbent. Conventional methods in removal of heavy metals require high operational cost, need highly skilled labour, and generate sludge at the end of the operation. Compared to other techniques, banana peel absorbent is a cost- effective adsorbent, easy to operate, environmentally safe and no health risk for the operator. Besides, large quantity of banana peel waste contributes to its significant disposal problem. Thus, this study is expected to solve problems of banana peel, by preparing banana peel adsorbent through hydrothermal carbonization. There are three phases in this project, phase 1 which is synthesis of banana peel based on hydrochars, banana peel was chopped the peels into small pieces. It was then soaked in KOH solution for 2hours and transferred into PTFE and heat for 2hours at 230°C. For phase 2, physico-chemical characterization of banana peels hydrochars by using FTIR. The result obtained shown that all of the content in banana peels will activate the surface of banana peel to enhance the adsorption of the heavy metals. For the final phase, by using AAS, the initial and final concentration of the metals was tested to determine the removal of heavy metals by the prepared hydrochars. The results showed that the removal capacity of the hydrochars increased when the initial concentration of the metals increased. From the research, it can be concluded that, as the initial concentration of the metals higher, the ability of the hydrochars to remove the metals also higher and stronger.

Polymer nanocomposites based on polylactic acid (PLA) and graphene (Gr) were blended via melt blending and solution mixing. The properties of hardness and melt flow index (MFI) were investigated with variables of Gr loading from 0.5–2.0 wt.% and the effect of poly(ethylene glycol) (PEG) as plasticizer. The PLA/Gr nanocomposites exhibited higher hardness compared with neat PLA for both methods of nanocomposites preparation which were due to stiffness effect from nanofiller. The loading of PEG in the PLA nanocomposites resulted in the slightly decreasing of hardness. The hardness of PLA and PLA nanocomposites obtained from melt blending were higher than hardness from solution mixing where 2.0 wt.% Gr loading in PLA exhibited maximum value which was 83.1 Shore D. The significant improvement on the MFI could be seen with plasticizer loading compared to unfillled PEG in PLA blends obtained from both methods. Again, the MFI values of PLA/Gr showed from melt blending were higher than exhibited from solution blending method. The highest MFI was 70.6 g/10 min, obtained from 0.5 wt.% Gr loading in PLA/PEG/Gr nanocomposite. The morphology study from Field Emission Scanning Electron Microscopy (FESEM) analysis confirmed the interfacial interaction and homogeneity of Gr in PLA in order to enhance the hardness and MFI properties as discussed above.