Fabricating and Testing Packaging Material Made Using Lye and Caustic Soda to Pulp Kiganda Banana Stems from Kisii County, Kenya
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Date
2024-11
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Kenyatta University
Abstract
Packaging has both functional and aesthetic purposes. In 2017, various Kenyan industries including the fashion industry were affected by the ban of single-use plastic bags in Kenya. This created a need for more biodegradable packaging options. Banana stems and peels are part of the waste produced in Kenyan farms, suggested for the construction of biodegradable paper packaging material. The objectives of this study were: to extract banana stem fibers using a decorticating machine, to pulp banana stem fibers using; a)Lye a) Caustic Soda, to construct samples of paper packaging material from; a) pulp treated with Lyeb) pulp treated with Caustic Soda, to test selected physical and mechanical properties of the constructed paper packaging materials made from; a) pulp treated with Lye b) pulp treated with Caustic Soda, to compare the properties of the paper packaging material made from the pulp treated with Lye to those made from pulp treated with Caustic Soda and finally to compare the properties of the paper packaging material made from pulp treated with Lye to established standard Kraft paper packaging properties of the Kenya Bureau of Standards (KEBS).The literature revealed that banana waste is an underutilized resource for creating packaging material and limited studies document banana stem paper properties. The research design for this study was an experimental design in which the following variables were measured; independent variables; banana variety and cellulose content, moderating variables: Lye and Caustic Soda, and the dependent variable was paper packaging quality measured through selected physical and mechanical properties which are color, water absorbency, bursting strength, tearing strength and tensile strength. The control was standard Kraft paper packaging from KEBS. A baseline study was done to establish the area of the study where the banana stems would be collected. Five counties known to be banana-growing counties were selected for the baseline. These were Embu, Kakamega, Kirinyaga, Kisii and Muranga. Kisii County was selected having the popular variety (Kiganda) with the highest cellulose content. 40 stems of one-meter length were collected, the outer sheath layers were included because they have fibers that are stronger and have a higher cellulose content. The 40 stems yielded 4200g of fiber which was pulped and converted to 80 paper sheets, 40 from the Lye and 40 from the Caustic Soda processes. Testing of the paper packaging material was done in the KEBS laboratory under set conditions of 65% ± 2% humidity and a temperature of 200C ± 20 C. The Research instruments were; a Pantone color chart, Cobb testing machine, Frank bursting strength tester, TexTest-FX 3750 Elmendorf tester, and Tinius Olsen tensile testing machine. The data was analyzed using one sample and two sample independent T-Test and on Excel 2013 software. Findings reveal that decorticating one-meter stem takes 10 minutes yielding 105g of dry fiber. The yield from the pulped banana fiber was 68% and 56% for Lye and Caustic Soda respectively. The making of 80 A4 papers took 16 hours to prepare and each paper takes 8 hours to air dry. The color of the papers was determined to be sand brown. The other property tests showed that for water absorptiveness, bursting strength, and tearing strength there was no significant difference between with Lye and that made with Caustic Soda. However, the tensile strength of the Caustic Soda sample was significantly higher than that of Lye. It also revealed that the Lye paper packaging material surpassed the minimum KEBS requirement for bursting strength and tearing strength however it had undesirable tensile strength and water absorbency and thus further research to improve these properties was recommended.
Description
A Research Thesis Submitted in Partial Fulfilment of the Requirements for the Award of the Degree of Master of Science in Fashion Design and Marketing in the School of Law, Arts and Social Sciences of Kenyatta University, November 2024
Supervisors:
1. Mercy Wanduara
2.Jacqueline Kisato