Saige Hanson- Fogarty

12.4.18
Chemistry abstract
Bioplastic Chemistry Abstract
Flexible plastic
Bioplastic is really beneficial to our earth because it is partly made from different sustainable
plant sources, and are often biodegradable and very useful when composting at the end of their useful life.
The one challenging thing about bioplastics is that it is an oil-based products. The purpose of this
experiment was to test different mixtures of ingredients on what their flexibility is and what different
relationships they have between each other. I chose this project because it seemed really interesting to me
so when I was researching about what bioplastic is, it came to me and made me realize that I really
wanted to do this project. When reading information about making bioplastic, I wanted to test different
combinations by changing the consistency of the bioplastic.
In this experiment, we were given different ingredients that we could manipulate to make the
bioplastic by changing one of the variables. Instead of changing only one variable, I changed every single
variable to see how it would react. For my group and I to be able to do this experiment we had to measure
several different liquids that were put into beakers with an opening area. The beakers were were placed on
a hot plate to be heated at different temperatures for each liquid to form a different consistency. For this
experiment my groups and I question was wanting to figure out which ingredient would affect the
flexibility, texture, and thickness? In our results it was found that the different the ingredients were the
more it was different from the original recipe. So for instance when we were trying to figure out the
flexibility that the potato, vinegar, glycerine, and cold water worked better then the original recipe that we
were given. Based on my groups and I results I think that for us it clearly states that changing one variable
in our project instead of using the original recipe we were giving changes a whole lot.