Making bio-plastic from starch Potatoes to Plastic Making bio-plastic from starch

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.

What’s so great about plastic? Malleability Versatility Low cost

What’s 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

What is bio-plastic? Bioplastic is a from of plastic derived from renewable biomass sources, such as vegetable oil or corn starch.

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.

The Pro’s: Bioplastic Bioplastics are made from plant based sources, not from fossil fuels so introduce no new carbon from materials source.

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

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.

Health and Safety Grating Acid Sodium Hydroxide Heat Gloves Goggles

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.

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.

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 doesn’t boil dry Using indicator paper and sodium hydroxide to neutralise the solution (probably about 3ml).

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…

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!