Introduction: Make Your Own Bioplastics!

By

This is my first try to document a scientific research project in a maker online community to demonstrate how scientists can make use of this platform to facilitate their research and encourage collaborations. This is still an ongoing new material research project, so we welcome collaborations (if you are interested, you can leave a comment below to see how can you contribute and I can add you as contributor for this instructable). Stay tuned!

Contributors: Maria Li Lok Yee, Gert Grobler, Maro Pebo, Mike Yuen

Community biolab: DIY BIO Hong Kong

Why we do this?

- The plastic wastes problem. We lived in a city that produce many plastics waste everyday. We also know that the waste are not being recycled properly, and the waste can get to the ocean and take ages to degrade. We have a strong feeling that want to do something to build a sustainable way and circular economy.

- DIYBIO community project, combine our interests and specialties (you can see how we map out the project in the mindmap)

- Personal reason: I was surprised to learn about the great pacific garbage patch (plastics soup) in the ocean when I attended a ecology lecture in uni and as a staff working in maker space, I see there are many wastage from packaging or scrap laser cut and 3D printing materials everyday. These reasons all make me want to develop a circular economy that create less waste and develop new materials that are sustainable.

Step 1: Experiment on Different Recipes

Methods:

Materials:

Starch-based

Recipe 1:

  • 50mL Water
  • 5mL Vinegar
  • 5g Glycerol
  • 6g Wheat Flour

Recipe 2:

  • 50mL Water
  • 5mL Vinegar
  • 5g Glycerol
  • 7.5g potato starch

Recipe 3:

  • 50mL Water
  • 5mL Vinegar
  • 5g Glycerol
  • 6g Tapioca starch

Recipe 4:

  • 50mL Water
  • 5mL Vinegar
  • 5g Glycerol
  • 7.5g sweet potato starch

Recipe 5:

  • 50mL Beetroot juice
  • 5mL Vinegar
  • 5g Glycerol
  • 7g potato starch

--- === Reference: https://www.wikihow.com/Make-Bioplastic-Easily === ---

Gelatin based

Recipe:

  • 240 mL cold water
  • 48g Gelatin (you can get the jelly powder from supermarket)
  • 12g Glycerol (you can get it from pharmacy)

--- === Reference: Clara Davis (2017) Fabtextile === ---

Kambucha

Recipe 1:

  • 1.5L hot water
  • Green tea leaves
  • 150mL Vinegar
  • 150g Sugar

Recipe 2:

  • 750mL hot water
  • Black tea leaves
  • 75mL Vinegar
  • 75g Sugar

Recipe 3:

  • 750mL hot water
  • Green tea leaves
  • 75mL Vinegar
  • 75g Sugar

--- === Reference: === ---

You can put the paste state bioplastic mixture on the molding or simply pour it in petri dish, spread it evenly and let it dry. It usually take 2-3 days to dry at 25C. In our case, we keep the lid open and incubate the bioplastic samples into an incubator under 25C for a week.

Step 2: Property Testing

Flammability test

Laser cutting test

Step 3: Make Prototypes From Bioplastics

Proposed products to prototype: Bags, wallets, food packaging, fork and knives, textile.

I am going to try making a bag this time. After doing the experimentation of various bioplastic recipe, I found the gelatine-based recipe gives the most appropriate properties for making a bag. It is elastic, not too sticky and gives a smooth surface.

Step 4: Degradation Test

Solubility test

Cutting 15mm x 15mm bioplastic pieces and immerse them into water. This test is in progress.