Composites from the Aquatic Environment

Composite materials have been used as materials in many industries due to several important reasons such as light weight, high stiffness, and strength properties, aesthetically pleasing, corrosion resistance and part consolidation. The reinforcement phase of the composites is mainly made from synthetic fibres such as glass, carbon, and aramid fibres, although in the recent years, a lot of effort have been intensified to use natural fibres in polymer matrix composites.

Chitin and chitosan properties are highly variable depending on the source, deacetylation, protein concentration, and extraction procedures. In order to obtain chitin and chitosan, they can be obtained from chemical and biological methods, conventional methods and microwave irradiation. All the methods undergo the same process; demineralization, deproteinization and deacetylation. Chitin and chitosan undergo modification (acetylation, quaternization, oxidative) to enhance its physical properties. Due to that, chitin and chitosan-based composites have the ability to assist in one of the most important environmental issues, which is water contamination as well as in other applications. Chitin has a poor solubility level, but it has been replaced by its derivative, chitosan, which has improved qualities as a soluble biopolymer rich in –NH2 and OH groups, which assists in a more efficient adsorption process when these biopolymers were modified. Chitin and chitosan composite undergo a thermomechanical kneading process to be used in food packaging. This includes chitosan as an edible food coating. Coating can be applied directly to the surface of meals as edible coatings or the surface of packaging materials to functionalize them. Furthermore, composite materials composed of chitin and chitosan have garnered substantial attention for biomedical purposes due to their low sensitivity to foreign substances, inherent antibacterial characteristics, biocompatibility, and biodegradability, as well as their ability to be moulded into a range of geometries and forms. This chapter emphasizes that the composites of chitin and chitosan can act as effective bio adsorbents for a variety of contaminants including adsorbent for wastewater’s pollutants as well as the application in food packaging and biomedical. Thus, these chitin and chitosan composites have the ability to adapt in many applications due to their unique properties.

The accumulation of plastic waste has resulted to severe environmental pollution which affects the stability of the flora and fauna worldwide. Hence, development of biopolymer is a promising alternative to reduce the dependency of mankind to towards the non-environmentally friendly plastics. Biopolymer derived from natural resources has been developed by researcher as a potential solution to this issue. Among biopolymer, agar is one of the most versatile due to the excellent gelling characteristics and film-forming ability. However, plain agar film possess several limitation which limits the potential application of this material. Therefore, various studies has been carried out to improve the properties of agar film. This article reviews the characteristics and performance of agar film when modified by using various materials. Also, various potential application of this biopolymer were discussed ranging from packaging, indicator film, and polymer electrolytes.

Over the past few decades, biocomposite materials consist of high density polyethylene (HDPE) and synthetic hydroxyapatite (HAp) have been proposed as a substitute material to be used in biomedical applications. Most of HAp that were produced synthetically, which is very expansive as well as laborious and time-consuming process. Therefore, an alternative material has been found to replace synthetic HAp with natural HAp which extracted from biowaste such as animal bone, teeth and eggshell. HAp extracted from biowaste is considered environmental friendly materials as there is no chemicals were used and it is economical due to cheaper raw material. Besides that, several million tons of fish scale are being generated daily as biowaste around the world. This scenario will end up with abundant of biowaste and become a liability to government to dispose them. Biowaste from fish scale that was become liability is now becomes an asset by transformed them into biomaterial which have potential to be used in biomedical applications. This chapter uniquely highlights the synthetic HAp and biogenic HAp from fish scales (FsHAp) as a filler in HDPE composites and their potential applications in biomedical applications.

From back in 1950, world production of plastic has expanded to 8.4% of annual growth rate and every year, global plastic manufacture has exceeded 400 million tons. It has been predicted that by 2025, generation of plastic would extend to 500 million tons. regardless of various application of petroleum-derived plastics and petrochemical-based polymers, the downside of them are they are not environmentally friendly because they are non-biodegradable which poses threat to earth ecosystem. Swift upscale of plastic manufacture has resulted in greenhouse gases and harmful chemicals emission alongside extensive energy usage. Over the course of decades, scientists and researchers strived and still are seeking possible solutions that are eco-friendly and sustainable to substitute conventional plastics generation. Studies mentioned that biopolymer synthesis has been recognized by researchers as potential promising composite to replace petroleum-derived plastics to cater global daily needs. Bioplastics can be manufactured from microorganisms, sustainable biomass resources as well as by-products of agriculture. tremendous research has been targeted towards bioplastics production from microorganisms like microalgae, cyanobacteria, and bacteria due their fast growth rate feature, with microalgae as the main spotlight. In pursuance of global circular bioeconomy, microalgae are regarded as the best suited candidate for biomass feedstock for the mass generation of biopolymer. The chapter provides an insight to the cultivation and harvesting of microalgal biomass to produce bioplastics and their industrial applications.

Synthetic polymer packaging waste is one of the major environmental problems in the world. Therefore, biodegradable material should be applied to resolve this problem. Many bio-based polymers have been developed as packaging materials to reduce the use of synthetic packaging material. Starch/carrageenan blends are biodegradable polymers having good properties as candidate materials for packaging. Biocomposite based cassava starch/carrageenan blends with reinforcement such as nanoclay, chitosan, zinc nanoparticles and natural fibers have great potential to increase their properties. This chapter provides a general overview of the biocomposite based cassava starch-carrageenan blend. The physical, chemical, and mechanical properties and prospective application of the biocomposite-based cassava starch-carrageenan blend are also presented.

Growing population needs several types of materials for their use, one of which is plastics, manufactured more than 400 million tonnes every year globally. The plastics are petroleum based and non-biodegradable, ends up as a plastic garbage in freshwater, marine water, landfills creating a problem to an ecosystem. To overcome all the issues related to petroleum-based plastics, microalgae-based plastics that is bioplastics are now considered as an alternative, are biodegradable and eco-friendly, needs less energy consumption and emits less GHG and toxic compounds. To check the impacts of bioplastics on the environment, life cycle assessment (LCA) process is taken into consideration, is a standardized process for estimating, monitoring, and controlling the environmental impacts of the products throughout their life cycle. Life cycle assessment are of four types; identifying the goal and scope, identifying the life cycle inventories, assessing the effect and interpreting the results. This paper gives an idea about how LCA research on microalgae is used to regulate the most ecological, eco-friendly route for producing the sustainable products having less impacts on an environment and reduce global warming.

The development of environmentally friendly composite materials continues to be carried out to reduce environmental pollution caused by synthetic fiber-based composites. It has resulted in the increasing need for natural fibers sourced from pineapple leaves, water hyacinth, hemp, cotton, and oil palm empty fruit bunches for automotive, packaging, electronic devices, biomedical and other applications. Water hyacinth fiber (WHF) is essential in developing natural fiber-based products with various biopolymer matrices. Water hyacinth is a free-floating aquatic plant that grows in tropical and subtropical. This plant is considered a weed because of its fast growth. So, currently, researchers are seeing many uses of this water hyacinth plant being converted into several cellulose-based products. This chapter review the extraction, characterization, and surface treatment of water hyacinth fiber into micro and nano cellulose and their use for biocomposites in various applications potential for commercialization. Evaluation of the physical properties of fibers (fiber composition, morphology, and single-cell dimensions) and water hyacinth fiber-reinforced polymer biocomposites will be discussed, along with the factors that influence them. Recent research of water hyacinth fiber reinforcement in thermoplastic, biodegradable and thermosetting is presented. Previous studies on the fabrication of natural fiber composites based on water hyacinth fiber, improved mechanical properties, thermal stability, and water vapor and gas resistance are discussed. Several recent research and developments have been proven and have not been produced for several commercial products that have been successfully made from the water hyacinth plant. Overall, this chapter provides preliminary data and information to continue future research of water hyacinth fibers and their biocomposites.

In the past few years, researchers have been aggressively digging out the use of marine collagen derived from renewable sources to make full use of it. Thus, this review reports various applications that have been developed by the researchers as marine collagen uses in tissue engineering, 3D bio-printing, catalysts for oxidation and reduction, biomedical applications and in cosmetic sectors. Moreover, researchers believe that collagen represents a potential as valid renewable resources for bioplastics, and biomaterials for composite applications. Particularly, marine organisms and biomass, including fish, jellyfish, starfish, fishery wastes and sponges contain very high amount of collagen, thus, have a wide range of uses that are yet to be realized especially in composite applications. These approaches promote the development of sustainable products, practice zero-waste strategy, highly-sustainable economic, and also reduced environmental pollution. Therefore, in this study, the emerging sources of marine organisms-derived collagen and its properties were reviewed. A comprehensive literature review on the fabrication of marine collagen-based composite to find out what researchers have found and investigated in marine ponging and collagen, plus, recent developments of the composites in advanced engineering applications also included.

An important natural biopolymer resource, seaweed has been employed in a wide variety of products around the world. Main seaweed derivatives such as alginate and carrageenan have been widely used in the fields of cosmetic and packaging as well as in pharmaceutical, culinary, and agricultural industries because of their high organic content and amazing phycocolloid qualities. Soluble particles or gels can be formed in the presence of water when seaweed phycocolloids are combined with water. However, they are hydrophilic. Consequently, their mechanical, water-blocking, and thermal qualities are often lacking. Fillers, blending with other biopolymer materials, or chemical modification can be used to overcome these disadvantages and create effective interlocks with the hydroxyl group. Polymers made from seaweed have the ability to produce films. Studies on the compatibility, biodegradability, and bioeconomy contributions of seaweed have confirmed that they are suitable for the production of biodegradable and cost-effective mix films for a wide range of applications. In this chapter, algae-derived composites are examined for their diverse applications. There are several uses for biotechnology-derived algae-based polymers, mixes, and composites such as pharmaceutical industries, packaging industries, tissue engineering, drug administration, for the production of edible films, fillers, UV screening films, and bio-nanocomposites films, having wide range of human endeavours.

This chapter reviews about chitin and chitosan extracted from sea shells and how chitin is converted into chitosan. Our goal is to assess the current level of knowledge on chitosan, including its function, applications, and chemical structure. We have described about chitosan-based composites and applications, polymer-chitosan composites, cellulose chitin composites, palm oil composites and so on. We have discussed about the different sources from which we can isolate chitin and chitosan. There are various applications of chitosan such as carrier of drugs, dietary supplement, environmental biotechnology, pharmaceuticals, forensic and many more this chapter reviews about all the applications mentioned above. Chitosan is a polysaccharide made up of (1,4) glycosidic linkages connecting deacetylated and acetylated D-glucosamine units. Through hydrolysis of the acetamide group, chitin deacetylation results in acetate ions and a –NH₂ group. This chapter focuses on current publications on chitin, chitosan, and their composites’ high-value-added applications and functions.

The accumulation of non-biodegradable waste created by plastic products made from petroleum-based polymers has had a severe influence on the environment. Seaweed (SW) is one of promising natural polymers that can be used to substitute synthetic plastic. Seaweed-derived polymers and polysaccharides such as alginate, agar and carrageenan have been widely utilized and their properties have been widely studied. Numerous research on seaweed-based composites have been done due to its renewability and sustainability when compared to synthetic plastics. The general background and characteristics of seaweed, seaweed derivatives, classification of seaweed-based composites as well as their applications are all covered in this chapter.