Sciencemadness Discussion Board - 'Green' Plastics..Suggestions please

'Green' Plastics..Suggestions please

NEMO-Chemistry - 2-10-2017 at 06:24

Hi
In the Journal of chemical education, there is an experiment making a kind of bio degradable plastic from Chitin.

unfortunately the paper has supporting information I couldnt get hold of, but I tracked down the missing parts in another paper. I tried it out using what we call 'Shrimps' here.

it went ok but smelled really bad. I have a small object buried in soil to see how it degrades.

So my question....

Apart from Chitin, what other forms or ways of making bio degradable plastic can I try to make? I have used my google foo, but the things I found were a bit above my level. So I thought I would see if you had any suggestions.

thanks

Sulaiman - 2-10-2017 at 08:40

Cellulose is the most obvious: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cellulose

Boffis - 2-10-2017 at 08:47

I think you only use the shells of shrimps and prawns and they are decalcified with dilute HCl before use.

For bioplastics what's wrong with cellulose esters and starch ester.

Σldritch - 2-10-2017 at 10:01

How about lignin?

Should be stronger than cellulose and fairly simple to make. Not sure if it is very plastic but at least it is a biodegradable polymer.

This too: http://www.sciencemadness.org/talk/viewthread.php?tid=73806

[Edited on 2-10-2017 by Σldritch]

NEMO-Chemistry - 2-10-2017 at 12:58

Thanks Guys.

@Boffis yep that is the way it is done in the paper, nothing wrong with cellulose esters. I was just looking for other ways to try out, i am interested in degradable plastic type materials, actually its something we are doing at school that gave me the idea to try it.

Lignin I didnt consider...... I will use my google foo to investigate thx's.

Morgan - 2-10-2017 at 16:46

Tidbits
https://www.polymersolutions.com/blog/biodegradable-plastic-...

And beetles.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2514948/The-p...
https://materia.nl/article/beetle-shell-plastic/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chitosan

[Edited on 3-10-2017 by Morgan]

mayko - 2-10-2017 at 17:50

Green Chemistry has published a lot of interesting stuff on chitin, especially regarding its extraction from shrimp waste using ionic liquids/eutectic solvents.
http://pubs.rsc.org/en/results/journals?Category=journal&...

Here's the Green Chemistry articles on biodegradability; you might find something interesting there:
http://pubs.rsc.org/en/results/journals?Category=Journal&...

NEMO-Chemistry - 3-10-2017 at 15:49

Thanks for the links.
Had i thought about it (which i didnt!!!) i might have twigged the polysacharide link between Lignin and Chitin etc.. oh well i will know to pay more attention next time

.

I will post the two papers I used, although i suspect most have seen them anyway. And another tip i suspect I am the last one to find out about, but just incase others dont know (unlikely), scihub has a firefox extension now. Its really good, you know sometimes how papers you find, dont always have a recognizable reference to chase up? Well with the firefox add on it dosnt matter, you get to the abstract or whatever on the paper and click the button, up pops the full text article. makes things a little easier.

most are likely to know it exists, but i only found it today

. Very handy little button. The two papers are on my laptop, which i havnt got here at the moment, so i will attach them in the morning.

NEMO-Chemistry - 6-10-2017 at 04:11

I had real trouble finding the paper on my laptop!! the more i organize the more stuff I loose!! I cant find the second paper yet.... but it will turn up

.

Anyway here is the original one i mentioned. I doubt anyone here will find anything useful in it, but a google drop in might.

Attachment: hudson2015.pdf (1.4MB)
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NEMO-Chemistry - 6-10-2017 at 05:41

As a side thought......

Would you use the same procedure with keratin? I ask because that is fairly easy to get from Horse hoof clippings. But it stinks a fair bit. No harm trying it out I guess, am I correct in thinking HCL isnt needed with keratin?

I thought the HCL was used to get rid of the calcium carbonate from the crab/shrimp shell.

In the link someone provided, it shows growing a bean plant in a 'bio plastic' made from Chitin. That is something else I would like to try, looking at waste products ans turning them into a useful resource interests me. Nothing large scale but proof of concept is pretty interesting.

Its a shame I seem to have lost the other paper I had, I will try and dig some more up.

Oh and feel free to dump this in detritus if its of no interest,l understand its a pretty niche topic

. Not sure if it fall into organic chemistry or what though!

maybe materials science/chemistry....

[Edited on 6-10-2017 by NEMO-Chemistry]

mayko - 6-10-2017 at 09:37

Quote: Originally posted by NEMO-Chemistry

I had real trouble finding the paper on my laptop!! the more i organize the more stuff I loose!!

Have you looked into reference management software like Mendeley? It improved my life greatly in this respect. The great bfesser once set up a SciMad group with it, though I don't know how much use has been made of it:
http://www.mendeley.com/groups/3524981/sciencemadness-org/
(requires registration?)

NEMO-Chemistry - 6-10-2017 at 11:01

Quote: Originally posted by mayko

Quote: Originally posted by NEMO-Chemistry

I had real trouble finding the paper on my laptop!! the more i organize the more stuff I loose!!

Wow
Thanks for that, the link just times out on my pc, this is not unusual however!! BUT a google foo discovered the software and download.

Not sure how to use it yet, but it looks to be exactly what I need. I have a online library/file type thing called pydio but its nowhere as useful.

I will download and get it set up. I try really hard to organize papers and pdf's, but somehow it all ends up in a mess.

I will try the link again later, my internet has spates of refusing to connect!!

NEMO-Chemistry - 6-10-2017 at 11:24

Downloaded the desktop version, not worked out the citation part yet, but the rest of it is a doddle! Seriously if anyone has a pc full of pdf's all over the place, then grab a copy of this.

Thx again mayko, i have looked on and off for ages for something like this. When you download papers from sci hub etc, normally you get a title with just the DOI number, this software also displays the title for you and opens the document!!

I will spend the weekend organizing

Melgar - 6-10-2017 at 17:03

Polylactate/polylactic acid/PLA is already among the top plastics used for 3D printing. The benefit/downside of it is that it melts at very low temperatures. So while it can be easy to use in a 3D printer, it'll lose its structural integrity if you put it under hot tap water.

mayko - 28-11-2017 at 16:53

Hudson, R., Glaisher, S., Bishop, A., & Katz, J. (2015). From Lobster Shells to Plastic Objects: A Bioplastics Activity. Journal of Chemical Education, 92, 1882−1885. http://doi.org/10.1021/acs.jchemed.5b00108

Attachment: From Lobster Shells to Plastic Objects A Bioplastics Activity.pdf (1.4MB)
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Quote:

Chitin Extraction: While lobster and shrimp shells are primarily composed of chitin, they also contain non-
negligible amounts of minerals and protein. To extract the chitin in a usable form, the shells are typically crushed, deproteinized with aqueous NaOH, and demineralized with HCl at elevated temperatures for prolonged periods of time. Recently developed bioextraction techniques have enabled researchers and engineers to use microorganisms to do this extraction without NaOH, HCl or elevated temperatures.

Attachment: phphDqoSv (352kB)
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Attachment: bioplastic procedure.pdf (102kB)
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