Potatoes to Plastic

1
Potatoes to Plastic

• Making bio-plastic from starch

2
What is Plastic?

• Plastic is a common term for a wide variety of
  synthetic or semi-synthetic materials suitable
  for use in manufacture.
• Plastics usually made up of polymers and often
  created from petroleum products.

3
Whats so great about plastic?

• Malleability
• Versatility
• Low cost

4
Whats not so great about plastic?

• About 8 of the worlds oil is used in plastic
  manufacture, 4 for raw materials, and 4 for
  energy
• Plastic products account for 35 of all litter

5
What is bio-plastic?

• Bioplastic is a from of plastic derived from
  renewable biomass sources, such as vegetable oil
  or corn starch.

6
Biodegradable?

• Biodegradation is a process where organic
  materials are broken down by natural processes
  and micro-organisms.
• All bio-plastics and conventional plastics are
  technically biodegradable. But, some break down
  slowly that they are considered practically
  non-biodegradable.
• Quite a lot of bioplastics will only biodegrade
  under very strict circumstances, most will not
  biodegrade in landfill.

7
The Pros Bioplastic

• Bioplastics are made from plant based sources,
  not from fossil fuels so introduce no new carbon
  from materials source.

8
The cons Bioplastic

• Most bioplastic manufacturers use oil products to
  fuel the production process. This uses about 80
  of the fossil fuel used in conventional plastic
  production.
• Problems of large scale mono-cropping
• Destruction of rainforest

9
But

• Bioplastic produced on a smaller scale, planted
  with biodiversity in mind and produced using
  renewable energy really is a sustainable option.
• One way of doing this is to make plastic from
  locally grown potatoes.

10
Health and Safety

• Grating
• Acid
• Sodium Hydroxide
• Heat
• Gloves
• Goggles

11
Extracting starch

• Grate about 100g of clean potato
• Add 100cm3 distilled water to the potato and
  grind in a pestle and mortar
• Strain the liquid off, and repeat adding
  distilled water, grinding and straining twice
  more.
• Leave to settle for 5 mins
• Strain the water off, leaving the starch behind.

12
Turning starch to plastic

• Potato starch is made from two carbohydrate
  polymers, amylose and amylopectin.
• Amylopectin needs to be broken down in order for
  the starch to be plasticised.

13
Turning potato to plastic

• Put 25cm3 water (distilled) into a beaker and add
  2.5g starch and 3ml hydrochloric acid and 2cm3
  pure glycerol.
• Bring to the boil for 15 mins, ensuring it
  doesnt boil dry
• Using indicator paper and sodium hydroxide to
  neutralise the solution (probably about 3ml).

14
Turning starch to plastic

• Add a few drops of colouring to the mixture and
  mix in.
• Pour the mixture out, and mould into your
  preferred shape.
• Leave to dry out. This will take a while

15
What to do with your plastic

• Once your mixture has dried out, attach a magnet
  to the back with some superglue to create a
  fridge magnet!