A Study of Optical Properties of Edible Film based Coconut Water for Sustainable and Environmentally Friendly Materials Packaging

Abstract

Nowadays, researchers are striving to address the problem of plastic pollution by uses of edible films developed from food biopolymers. Biopolymer are a group of alternative materials made partly or entirely from renewable sources. The objective of this study was to create edible film from fermented coconut water. We called nata de coco (NDC). NDC resulting from the fermentation of Acetobacter xylinum bacteria in coconut water can be used as raw material for biopolymer because it contains cellulose compounds so it is called biocellulose. In this research, edible film was produced used mainly material is NDC. The method was manufactured using mixture and founding methods. Edible film based NDC also produced which is mixed with chitosan with a mass composition mass ratio of NDC and chitosan is 80:1 by varying the chitosan dissolved in acetic acid at 15 ml, 20 ml and 25 ml. The optical properties of edible film is become focused in this study. Based on UV-Vis spectrometer testing, samples obtained with a 15 ml acetic acid variant gave a transmittance value of 89%, while samples obtained with a 20 ml acetic acid variant gave a transmittance value of more than 90%. This high transmittance value shows that the sample of NDC-edible film obtained with variations of 20 ml of acetic acid has a high degree of transparency. Coconut trees are tropical plants that are easy to grow in coastal areas. Therefore, this plant is well known to the public considering that Indonesia is an archipelagic country and has spread out beaches. Indonesia is one of the largest coconut producing countries in the world, so research using coconut is very sustainable.