AmSkulScience

c 23/Jan/2019 How to make Potato Plastic! Can u imagine that usually plastics take hundreds of years to decompose, and are extremely harmful to the environment. Imagine being in the nice summer sun, at the beach with your friends. Well let me give you a reality check that beach is basically a trash soup, and more than 90% of that soup is made out of plastics. Not only is it harming the water but the animals too. Now we might be thinking well we don’t live in the water so ‘who cares’ right? Well plastics can affect the land also. Well there is a way for us to change this! Make a better world for both the fishes and us. Imagine a plastic that isn’t made out of foreign oil. A plastic that doesn’t use seven barrels of petroleum to produce. Well I got you covered! We can make an eco-friendly plastic made out of POTATOES! Yes you read it right! I said potatoes. This plastic is biodegradable, meaning that it will decompose into nutrients in the soil in about two months and then it will end

Plastics By: Areta To start of plastic is a “synthetic organic polymer” ( Anne Marie Helmenstine, ThoughtCo.) Meaning their chemical composition is made up of carbon and hydrogen. Plastics are made out of polymers, though polymers have a chemical structure of that include carbon and hydrogen, there are able to add other molecule structures to make different types of plastics. Polymers are unsaturated, meaning during fabrication other bonds can be added and break the double bond, making it complete. These added molecules, structures, can be known for colorants, stabilizers, fillers, and reinforcements. These additives can affect the physical structure, chemical, and usage as well as cost. Examples of different plastics, their chemical formulas, and their use include; High-density polyethylene—HDPE: (HDPE was first produced in England and became famous in the 1950s in the united states. It makes a by a chain of ethylene molecules. The properties of HDPE include: i

For my lab, I will be testing the melting points of different plastics. My Independent Variable will be the different plastics My Dependent Variable will be the melting point of different plastics My Control Variable will be the amount of plastic I will be putting into the oven to melt. To determine the melting point, I have to be observing the plastic for the whole time while it is being heated. I have to be observing very closely because, to determine the melting point I have to see when the plastic starts to melt and when it is completely melted (1). I will be using two plastics two compare each other, I will use Polyethylene terephthalate which is the most produced plastic in the world and Polyethylene, these two plastics are the most common plastics (2). I will be comparing the melting point of each of the plastics and finding out what plastic is more resistant to heat. Polyethylene terephthalate is thermoplastic which means that it reacts to heat in a