Fabricademy : Bio Plastics

Main post details here about the Fabricademy project assignment

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Cornstarch & glycerine Bioplastic

1. After mixing & poured into the tray
   • I used a pizza tray for most of my experiments as these seemed to be the largest trays I could find for free.
2. Bottle of ClassiKool Vegetable Glycerine (Glycerol)
3. When the bioplastic, it dried and cracked leaveing small piece of bioplastic
   • The properties of the bioplastic were hard rolex watch replica but almost rubbery in feel.

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Other Bioplastic/Slime tests

1. Cornstarch & Fairy washing-up liquid
   • This past year has shown a strange trend for  making fun slime to play with
   • It is used by kids for activities of temporary modelling as well as Instagrammers
2. The second image is the same Cornstarch Washing up liquid mixture
   • I used the lid of a Tupperware for a mould as it was flat and round and the size was manageable
   • I . chose to let it sit for a few hours in the fridge so it turned hard.
   • It also lightened in colour and  cracked up.
3. Cornstarch, vinegar & water
   • I made a small amount of the mixture and then poured it onto some foil.
   • It cracked and was such a thin amount that I could even peel or crack it off of the foil
4. Cornstarch, vinegar & water
   • This time I made much more of the mixture.
   • It felt more like a floury dough.
5. Cornstarch, vinegar & water
   • It still started to crack and was also a more see-through.

I’d like to try some of these again, maybe mixing and combining a few different ingredients to see how bioplastic changes.

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Agar experiment 1

1. Agar: The first time I made the agar bioplastic, it just fluffed and clumped together into really a really tough gel-like mix.
2. So I decided to add a little more water and reheat it, but on a much lower temperature and really stir and mash it.
3. I also added in a teaspoon full of vegetable glycerine
4. Here is the Agar Agar which was purchased from Quimics Dalmau – a shop that many of us visited throughout the course!
5. Here you can see the remixed bioplastic in the pizza tray (which as you can see now, has a patterned base)
   • Agar seems to set almost instantly. And you can see from the image that the upper surface was not flat
   • Even topping it up and touching the surface disturbed it.
6. Here is the same Agar bioplastic 2 weeks later
   • You can see how it has significantly shrunk!
   • (which the cornstarch did not do in the same way, instead the cornstarch cracked and suck to the outer circumference of the plastic tray)
   • One theory why the agar did this is that when placing the agar tray down, the bioplastic mixture was slightly moved away from the edges of the tray
   • This meant that it had nothing to grip onto to pull it flat, but instead just shrunk towards the centre
7. This image shows the agar bioplastic after 1 month
   • As you can see it has shrunk to over half the size
   • (This image shows the piece upside down in the tray)
   • It has also retained that pretty pattern imprint of the pizza tray, which is something I’d like to look into further.
   • The bioplastic is also ver very hard.
   • I wont make a test with this piece, but if I were to do the test again, I’d make several of the same samples so that I could do different tests on them like strength, weight and even water solubility,

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