Research Lab Project: Bioplastics

Jack Martha, Nick Koscinski, and Jordon Surkosky

Ms. Miller pd. 1 Honors Chemistry
April 4th 2018
Research:
Bioplastics are plastics made of biomass materials which are materials that can decompose.
Some things they use to make bioplastics are vegetable fats and oils, corn starch, or microbiota.
Bioplastics are used for disposable items like packaging, cutlery, pots, bowls, cups and straws.
These plastics can replace regular plastics. The only thing stopping bioplastics from being the
main source of plastic is cost and performance.
Starch based plastics is what we used for our experiment. These plastics are the most widely
used bioplastics. 50 percent of the market for bioplastics is starch based. Starch based bioplastics
are also the easiest to make. Scientist are trying to prefect bioplastics because some of them are
better for the environment then regular plastics. Since regular plastics are made of petroleum,
bioplastics will conserve the Earth’s petroleum supplies to be used for other things like gasoline
and energy.
Question: Which starch makes the strongest bioplastic?
Hypothesis: Corn Starch will be the strongest bioplastic because it is the most popular bioplastic.
Materials:
250 ml beaker
Large watch glass
Bunsen burner and heat proof mat
Tripod and gauze
Stirring rod
Corn Starch
Flour
Propan-1, 2, 3-triol
Hydrochloric acid
Sodium hydroxide
Universal Indicator paper goggles
Scale
25 ml measuring cylinder
Weights
Goggles
Procedure:
1. Put 25 ml water into the beaker and add 2.5 g potato starch, 3 ml hydrochloric acid and 2
ml propan-1,2,3-triol.
2. Put the watch glass on the beaker and heat the mixture using the Bunsen burner. Bring it
carefully to the boil and then boil it gently for 15 minutes. Make sure it does not boil dry
– if it looks like it might, then stop heating.
3. Dip the glass rod into the mixture and dot it onto the indicator paper to measure the pH.
Add enough sodium hydroxide solution to neutralize the mixture, testing after each
addition with indicator paper. You will probably need to add about the same amount of
sodium hydroxide as you did acid at the beginning (3 ml).
4. Pour the mixture onto a labelled petri dish or white tile and push it around with the glass
rod so that you have an even covering.
5. Label your mixture and leave it to dry out. This will take about 1 day on a radiator or
sunny windowsill or two days at room temperature.
6. Re-do steps 1-5 for corn starch and flour.
7. Use a ruler to see how far the substance will stretch without breaking
8. Repeat for the number of substances
Data:
Flour product stretched 10 cm
Corn Starch product stretched 6 cm

Analysis:
Originally we were going to test the durability of our plastic, but we ran into some problems with
our experiment. Instead of hardening like it was supposed to, our products remained a little soft,
sticky, and gooey. This made testing the products a little more difficult. Therefore, we decided to
test how far the substances would stretch until ripping apart. The flour product stretched 10 cm,
while the corn starch product only stretched 6 cm. Therefore, we can assume that the flour plastic
most likely would have been more durable than the corn starch plastic if the experiment had gone
correctly.
Conclusion:
For our experiment we created or attempted to create bio plastic made from corn starch for one
sample, and wheat starch as another sample. We used hydrochloric acid, sodium hydroxide, and
a substitute for propan. We set the four dishes out for two days in direct sunlight as directed.
However, both of our two forms of bio plastic did not turn out as we intended the samples to.
Instead of forming hard plastic that we could strength test, it formed a gooey substance. The “bio
plastic” most similarly took the form of petroleum jelly. After we saw that our plastic did not
turn out as expected, we baked it for six hours hoping it would harden the substance, however
that did not help either. Unable to strength test the “jelly”, we did a stretch test and looked at
which substance stretched the furthest before ripping into two. The wheat starch stretched the
furthest. After looking back at our procedure, we have concluded that either the substitute for the
propan could have affected the hardening of the plastic, and or the thickness that we poured the
substance into the dish could have been too thick (not allowing the plastic to harden fully). If we
were to do this project in the future, we would use the proper form of propan and make sure not
to pour the substance too thick into the curing dishes.