Performance Analyses on the antioxidant activity of Phenolic Compounds from Rice Husk as a Potensial Natural Antioxidants for Bioplastic Packaging
The addition of antioxidant on to plastic for food packaging aims to prevent polymeric degradation caused by oxidation and slow down the quality decline during storage. Phenolic compounds are one type of antioxidants that can be found in rice husk with varying content levels depending on age of seedlings and length of storage. Polylactic acid (PLA) plastic is widely known to be used in food packaging and keeps foodstuff from oxidation. The objectives of this study were to evaluate the utilization of rice husk as a source of a potential natural antioxidants for Bioplastic Packaging, thus reduce the amount of waste generated by rice production. The processes included extraction, identification, and performance analyses on antioxidant activity of phenolic compounds extracted from rice husk. The fixed variable was the ratio of rice husk to methanol, which was 1:8 (m/v). The independent variable was time of maceration, which consisted of 1, 5, 10, 15, and 20 hours, and the dependent variable was yields of extracted phenolic compounds. Identifications were conducted with FTIR and IC50 tests. Extraction results showed that time of maceration of 15 hours produced the highest yield of 0.72% (m/v). FTIR analyses showed the presence of phenolic compounds at 3368.507 cm-1 and 3572.977 cm-1. The IC50 assay produced a value of 74.80 ppm, which indicated a strong antioxidant activity. The results indicate that phenol extract from rice husks has the potential to be used as a natural antioxidant for Bioplastic packaging