Topic:
Making a Plastic
from Starch
Name: Mohammed Arshad s
Roll no:
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
I express my gratitude to our principal
Mrs. [Link] and academic coordinator
[Link] of our institution for our
Continuous support and encouragement
I express my sincere thanks to my
computer science teacher Fazil
Zubinraj J for me to complete this
project successfully.
BONAFIDE CERTIFICATE
Certified to be the bonafide project of work done by
MASTER: Mohammed Arshad S
Register No:
Maharishi Vidya Mandir [Link]. School, Iluppur during
The year 2025-2026
Date: Teacher-In-Charge
Submitted for AISSCE Practical Examination held in
Computer Science Laboratory at Maharishi Vidya Mandir
Sr. Sec. School, Iluppur.
Date: INTERNAL EXAMINE
PRINCIPAL EXTERNAL EXAMINAR
01 ABOUT
AIM
INTRODUCTON
02 THEORY
03 REQUIREMENT
04 PROCEDURE
05 RESULT & CONCLUSION
06 BIBLIOGRAPHY
I would like to express my profound and appreciation to those who
helped me with this project, for their time expended and for sharing
their insights about the project.
I have been immeasurably enriched by working under the guidance
and supervision of DR MP GUPTA PGT CHEMISTRY, who has a great level
of knowledge and has an art of encouraging, Correcting and directing
me in every situation possible, which has enabled me to complete the
project. I would also like to thank all the people who have helped me in
this project and appreciate the available sources who provided me
with the research papers.
Aim: Making a plastic from starch
Introduction :
Plastic pollution is currently one of the biggest
environmental concerns. Synthetic Plastics are
made up of long chain of molecules (polymer)
containing repeated units of carbon atoms
(monomer). These Synthetic polymers has extremely
strong carbon-carbon bond with each other.
Because of this inherent molecular stability,
plastics do not breakdown into simpler components
easily.
So to find the alternative of this problem I made a
successful attempt to make a biodegradable plastic.
We say it Biodegradable because natural organisms
are capable of breaking the material down into
smaller parts. We use starch polymer(Amylose)
which is biodegradable in nature and hence
successfully converted to replacement of plastic.
Why we chose starch?
Starch is made of long chains of glucose molecules
joined together. Strictly, it contains two polymers:
amylose, which is straight chained, and amylopectin,
which is branched.
Glucose(simple sugar) is essential for life, that
being the reason many organisms from bacteria to
human break starch into simple sugar(glucose).
How it degrades into simple sugar?
Starch is a chain of simple sugar monomers called
glucose the bonds that connect then are called
glycosidic bonds an enzyme called amylase helps
break sugar part by fitting between two monomers.
A water molecule is absorbed is order to break the
glycosidic bond between two monomers in a process
called hydrolysis.
Structural representation is as below
[Link] starch
2. Propan-1,2,3-triol (glycerol)
[Link] acid
[Link] hydroxide
5. Spirit lamp
[Link]
[Link] Indicator paper
[Link] rod
[Link] dish
1. Start the experiment by placing tripod over a
Spirit lamp with china dish at above it.
2. Add some water into the china dish.
Note: If too much water is used, the polymer does
not solidify and remains a liquid
3. Then add starch little by little with continuous
stir. Avoid making air bubbles.
Note: When starch is dried from an aqueous
solution it forms a film as a result of hydrogen
bonding between the chains
4. Add some HCl into the mixture.
Note: After step3 However, the amylopectin
inhibits the formation of the film. The addition of
hydrochloric acid breaks the amylopectin down,
allowing a more satisfactory film formation
5. Add propan1,2,3-triol in suitable amount.
Note: The addition of propan-1,2,3-triol has an
effect because of its hydroscopic (water
attracting) properties. Water bound to the
propan-1,2,3-triol gets in amongst the starch
chains and inhibits the formation of crystalline
areas, preventing brittleness and resulting in
more ‘plastic’ properties.
6. To neutralize HCl add some NaOH into it.
7. After you observe it forming like Plastic film or
Vaseline like gel lay it down to flat surface.
8. Spread it into long sheet of desired thickness.
9. let it dry properly for at least an hour properly.
10. Peal it out from the surface. And your plastic is
formed.
Mixing of chemicals at raised
temperature
Making thin sheet of plastic.
Thus we obtain a fair looking plastic.
Things that could be done better is to pierce out
plastic properly once its prepared and little food
colour can be added for good appearance
We obtained a Plastic piece which demonstrates
that starch can be used to make plastic
[Link]
[Link]