Potatoe Plastic

c23/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 up in nature.

But before making this Potato plastic let’s understand the science behind it! Umm well first let’s think about what real plastics are made of. According to Wikipedia the petroleum plastics are mostly made up of polymers. Polymers are a long chain of atoms bonded to another. They are made of many molecular units. The polymers are made up of carbon and hydrogen or oxygen, nitrogen, and chlorine. Now that we know what regular plastics are made up of, let us connect this with potato starch. Well starch is mixture of two polymers! These polymers are called Amylose and Amylopectin! So this is showing us that in order for us to make plastics one thing we definite need are long straight chains of polymers! Since starch has branched chains in it also, we used the vinegar which is an acid to break down the Amylopectin into straight smaller chains. The reason we used the glycerin was because we needs that hard and flexible feeling similar to the PVC plastic, and without it it would break like glass immediately we bent it.

Now I will be teaching you how to make these Biodegradable plastics made out of plastics!

To make this we will be using the starch that you remove from a potato. But if you cannot find potatoes nearby then I cannot imagine how you can eat a burger without French fries!. Joking! Then you may use corn starch.

Ingredients:

1.      2 white-skinned potatoes or potato/corn starch

2.      Water

3.      100% vegetable liquid glycerin

4.      White vinegar

5.      Food coloring

Supplies:

1.      Nonstick pan

2.      Spoon

3.      Hot plate

4.      Knife

Optional:

1.      Blender

2.      Beeler

Step 1

Okay the first step is for us to remove the starch, which is quite easy since 95% of it is starch!

1.      Get a potato and wash it

2.      Use a peeler and remove the skin

3.      Cut the potato into smaller pieces that you believe will be easy for the blender to blend.

4.      Add 1 cup of water and cubes to the blender and mix it

5.      Strain of the water

6.      Spread on wax paper in sun and store until dry

7.      If wanted you may want to remove the cellulose but it is not required

Step 2:

Now it is time we mix it all up!                                                                                                   

Note to self-* when pouring the plastic resin into mold be careful because it is very hot and we wouldn’t want anyone ending up in the ER!

1.      Get 4tbs of COLD water and pour it into the container that you will be mixing your mixture in.

2.      Get 1tbs of starch and add it to the water

3.      Add 1tbs of vinegar

4.      Add 1tbs of glycerin

a.    The more you add the softer and more liquid but the less that you add the harder it will get,(which is what we want)

5.      If you wanna be all fancy fancy then you may add some food coloring

6.      Stir the mixture while the fire is on low, when it thickens turn the heat up and stir even fasterrrrr like in in the movie fast and furios until it boils! Okay now chillll, you can start slowing down and letting it boil for 5 minutes.

7.      Take the goeyish plastic and pour it into a mold and wait about 1 day(depending on humidity) But if you’re not patient then you can set it in the oven for like 1-2 hours settled at 150^F 

Bravoo scientists! You are finally done and now you can use your art skills and shape it into whatever you would like!

Bye and see you next time!