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    Bioplastics: A Home Inventors Handbook
    Bioplastics: A Home Inventors Handbook
    Bioplastics: A Home Inventors Handbook
    Ebook105 pages2 hours

    Bioplastics: A Home Inventors Handbook

    By Robert Murray-Smith

    4/5

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    About this ebook

    Bioplastics is one of those areas that the home inventor has the advantage. The raw materials are cheap, readily available and easy to work with. There has been relatively little study done so far as the field is still quite new and there are a significant amount of discoveries to be made.
    What you have to realise here is that you are not attempting to synthesise polymers from monomers or synthesis new monomers. What you are trying to do is source and extract existing polymers from biological sources and turn those into useful products and usable plastics. The aim of this book is to give you a methodology for exploring bioplastics and creating your own. There are a LOT of recipes included. Mostly these are meant as a starting point and as a way of seeing the methodology in action. Biological polymers can be found in an enormous range of potential sources. Really the book is meant to encourage experimentation and all I really have to say is get out there and try.
    Sources of biological polymers would include fungi, molds, bacteria, seaweeds, plants, sugars, starches, crabs, lobsters, etc, etc - and these are only the ones being currently investigated. Though I mention in passing, so to speak, those polymers where the monomer is derived from biological sources, the main thrust of the book is in utilising those polymers that already exist.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherRobert Murray-Smith
    Release dateFeb 4, 2013
    ISBN9781301431489
    Bioplastics: A Home Inventors Handbook
    Author

    Robert Murray-Smith

    If you want to contact me you can email me at robertmurraysmith64@gmail.com

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    • 4/5
      This book is an easy reading for a first approach to homemade Bioplastics.

    Book preview

    Bioplastics - Robert Murray-Smith

    Bioplastics - A Home Inventors Handbook

    by

    Robert Murray-Smith

    Copyright 2013 Robert Murray-Smith

    Smashwords Edition

    This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

    Contents

    Introduction

    Biopolymer materials

    Shaping of Molten Biopolymers

    Post-Formation Processing

    Articles Made From Biopolymers

    Biopolymer types

    Plasticisers

    Additives

    Recipes For Bioplastics

    Biopolymer Starch Composites

    Biopolymers from cereals

    Cellulose Based Bioplastics

    Sugar based Polymers

    Seaweed Based plastics

    Chitin

    Protein Starch Composites

    Oat Based Plastics

    Where To Go From Here?

    Introduction.

    Bioplastics is one of those areas that the home inventor has the advantage. The raw materials are cheap, readily available and easy to work with. There has been relatively little study done so far as the field is still quite new and there are a significant amount of discoveries to be made.

    What you have to realise here is that you are not attempting to synthesise polymers from monomers or synthesis new monomers. What you are trying to do is source and extract existing polymers from biological sources and turn those into useful products and usable plastics. The aim of this book is to give you a methodology for exploring bioplastics and creating your own. There are a LOT of recipes included. Mostly these are meant as a starting point and as a way of seeing the methodology in action. Biological polymers can be found in an enormous range of potential sources. Really the book is meant to encourage experimentation and all I really have to say is get out there and try.

    Sources of biological polymers would include fungi, molds, bacteria, seaweeds, plants, sugars, starches, crabs, lobsters, etc, etc - and these are only the ones being currently investigated. Though I mention in passing, so to speak, those polymers where the monomer is derived from biological sources, the main thrust of the book is in utilising those polymers that already exist.

    Bioplastics are commonly understood to be a form of plastics derived from renewable biomass sources, such as vegetable fats and oils, corn starch, pea starch or microbiota. Common plastics, such as fossil-fuel plastics, are derived from petroleum- these plastics rely more on scarce fossil fuels and produce more greenhouse gas. Some, but not all, bioplastics are designed to biodegrade. Being biodegradable is often seen as one of the hallmarks of a green plastic. Biodegradable bioplastics can break down in either anaerobic or aerobic environments, depending on how they are manufactured. There are a variety of materials bioplastics can be composed of, including: starches, cellulose, or other biopolymers.

    Preparing bioplastics on a small scale is not actually that difficult. On the whole the recipes are simple and the materials readily available and the possibilities endless. There are so many conceivable combinations no one can study them all - so you have as much chance as anybody else in coming up with a new bioplastic.

    In general they are prepared by the following equation

    biopolymer + plasticiser + other additives = bioplastic

    Biopolymer Materials

    When we are thinking of biopolymer materials what we mean is materials that are generally capable of repeatedly softening when appropriately heated and hardening when subsequently cooled. Biopolymer materials are generally in a solid or form stable state below the melting point or softening range, while generally being in a plastic or flowable state above the melting point or softening range. The idea of solidity is that the material is sufficiently hardened, nonplastic or nonflowable such that it will substantially maintain its shape without external support. Of course, so called solid materials can have a degree of resilience, bendability or deformability and yet maintain their characteristic as being a solid.

    When something is thought of as plastic and flowable what we are thinking about are materials that can be moulded or otherwise shaped or deformed without causing significant damage to the structural matrix of the material upon resolidification. Thus, while a solid material can be bent or otherwise deformed, there is a point after which further movement or deformation could cause the structure to rupture, crack, or otherwise weaken irreversibly. Plastic or flowable materials, on the other hand, are characterized as being able to be shaped and deformed as desired while yielding a final solidified article having the same general strength properties upon solidification regardless of the degree of deformation while in a plastic state when normalized for variables such as thickness, size, shape, texture, molecular orientations, and so on.

    A biopolymer material is characterized in that it can be shaped into a desired article by first heating the material to a temperature above its melting point or softening range to form a flowable or plastic melt. The biopolymer melt can then be shaped into a desired article. Thereafter, or substantially at the same time of shaping, the shaped material is cooled sufficiently to cause it to harden or solidify and thereby form the desired article or intermediate material. The intermediate material can be further shaped or manipulated by reheating it to form a melt phase and then cooling to resolidify the shaped material.

    The degree of crystallinity can affect whether or not a biopolymer has at distinct or abrupt melting point. In general, the more crystalline a polymer is, the more distinct is its melting point. Conversely, more amorphous polymers tend to soften, melt and solidify over a range of temperatures. Thus, amorphous polymers do not have a distinct melting point but rather a softening or melting range. Because of this, more amorphous polymers have greater melt stability. That is, they can be melted and then shaped under conditions of high shear and pressure over a relatively broad range of temperatures without abruptly solidifying like more crystalline polymers. The softening or melting range generally becomes even broader as variability in the molecular weight of the individual polymer chains increases, which tends to further inhibit crystallization of the polymer molecules.

    The temperature at which a more amorphous polymer becomes soft enough to be shaped is generally significantly lower than the melting point of a more crystalline form of the same polymer. In other words, the softening or melting range of a more amorphous polymer can be substantially lower than the melting point of a more crystalline form of the same polymer. Thus, more amorphous polymers can often be shaped at lower temperatures compared to similar polymers that are more crystalline. Conversely, more crystalline polymers can solidify more abruptly when cooled to below the melting point but will also exhibit greater dimensional stability when subsequently subjected to heat. More amorphous polymers tend to have greater flexibility and bending endurance while more crystalline polymers are more rigid and have a greater Young's modulus.

    Because more crystalline polymers have a more abrupt melting point

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