Project v025 Banana leaf fibres

By Ahmet Sen, Demio van Houten, Feike Smithuis & Yusuf Kaya

IntroductionWorldschool v025 is an assignment about replacing the plastic bags in Kenya. But what are they supposed to be replaced with?The goal is to make a material for the packaging made out of banana leafs.There is a huge potential for this kind of material in Kenya because of a ban for plastic bags and of the high number banana plants in East Africa, also in Kenya there is plenty of land to plant the banana plants. We thought that by doing this, we could doing something good for the world.

Table of contentsSection 1: Summary…………………………………………………………………..3

Section 2: Rise and relevance……………………………………………………….4§2.1 Questions and assignment§2.2 Reason for the start of the project§2.3 Goal§2.4 Wanted Result(s)

Section 3:................................................................................................................5§3.1: literature questions§3.2: Literature Survey

§3.2.1 wikipedia.org | Plastic §3.2.2 duurzaambedrijfsleven.nl | Bioplastic

§3.2.3 wikipedia.org | Starch

Section 4: Method of working………………………………………………………...7

Section 5: Results and conclusion…………………………………………………..9

Section 6: Discussion………………………………………………………………..10

Section 7: Literature………………………………………………………………….11

Section 1: SummaryStarting with the problem to make a material to replace plastic bags with banana leafs pushed us to thinking out of our comfort zone, out of the box thinking a task we learn at a subject as O&O. Our thoughts went to bioplastic, because the second assignment was making an environmentally friendly replacement of the plastic bags. Bioplastic can be made out of cellulose and out of starch, but we had to held the cellulose or the starch out of the banana leafs. If you want to held cellulose out of banana leafs you need chemical products that harm the environment, so we could not use cellulose. Starch was the second option, we only had to make clear that their is enough starch in the banana leafs. We did this with an experiment, after we did this we made our own bioplastic in the laboratory at school. This is how we made our own material to replace plastic

Wat is de opdracht

We zochten voor het vak O&O eenn nieuw project, een project waarmee we echt iets konden betekennen. We kwamen na wat zoeken op worldschool bij de opdracht van de heer Van de Sterre terecht. De opdracht was om onderzoek te doen naar een vervanger, die geproduceerd kan worden uit banenbladeren, van plastic voor de productie van plastictasjes. We moesten plastic vervangen, omdat plastictasjes zijn verboden in Kenia. We vonden dit wel interressant, omdat het een heel biochemisch onderzoek is. We kwamen tot op om het plastic te vervangen door bioplastic, want deze zijn niet verboden en hebben ongeveer dezelfde eigenschappen. We hebben gekozen voor de optie om bioplastic te maken van zetmeel, omdat dat het milieu niet belast en je er niks anders dan de bananen blaaderen en water voor nodig hebt. Het is ook idiaal voor in kenia, omdat je er vrij weinig voor nodig hebt en dat er meer dan genoeg bananbladeren zijn.

We searching for the subject O&O for a new project' a project that really meant something. We found after some searching the assignment of mr. Van de Sterre. The assignment was to do a research in finding a new material that is made out of banana leafs and that can replace the currently banned plastic bags in Kenya. We found this a interesting biochemical project. Our idea was to replace the plastic for a bioplastic because these are not banned and have the same properties of a regular plastic bag. We chose to make the bioplastic based on starch because it is biodegradable and therefore won't harm the environment and you only need starch and water for the production. For these reasons this is a ideal solution for Kenya's plastic ban problem.

Section 2: Rise and relevance§2.1. Questions and assignment

The assignment that we have received is to replace the currently banned plastic bags in Kenya for a more eco friendly kind of material. Our goal is to make such a material form the big availability of banana leaves in Kenia. For this research we need to find out what kind a few separate things in order to progress in our study.

● What kind of materials are banana leaf made out of?● What kind of bioplastic can we fabricate with one of those materials?

In our study there is describe of how this material looks like on a molecular level

§2.2. Reason for the start of the projectIn 2010 were plastic bags banned in Kenya. The plastic bags are banned because of the environmental problems in Kenya. Some examples of these problems are water pollution and the dying of the livestock. This had as result that the residents of Kenya nothing had to transport their stuff easily from one point to another. So the plastic bags had to be replaced with something.

§2.3. GoalThe client of our project wants to find a way to replace plastic bags, because of the ban for the plastic bans. He wants to improve the environmental condition in Kenya and of course in the world. He wants to help the people and he wants to take his profit of the investing in natural banana fibre paper packaging.

§2.4. Wanted result(s)

The focus of this project is to find a material where that replaces the currently banned bag in Kenya.The material needs to be affordable, reliable, environmental friendly and easy to produce. In this study we only look for the material and not for how it is manufactured into a bag or packaging material. We do this so we can focus more on how it is made rather

To do this there needs to be made contact with a lot of different company’s The business case of this project is that our client is getting a new business from where he can make a better future for Kenya.Also this project is in our client interest because of the mass production of those bags there is a good economical advantage to start this business .In conclusion: the result that our client is getting is an advice of how to start a new business that mass produces paper banana leaf fiber bags for the people of Kenya.

This material needs to be affordable, reliable, environmentally friendly an easy to produce

Section 3: Theoretisch kader§3.1: literature questions

1. What is plastic?2. What kinds of plastics are there?3. Are there any other forms of bioplastic?4. What is starch?

§3.2: Literature Survey :

§3.2.1 wikipedia.org | Plastic

URL: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PlasticURL: http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polymeer Consulted by: Yusuf Kaya

Plastic is an organic polymer, a molecule that is made out of a sequence of multiple identical or similar parts (monomers). The polymer of the plastic from what plastic bags are made consists out of monomers made out of hydrocarbons. Hydrocarbons are particles made out of carbon and hydrogen atoms. Polymers can be categorized in three different categories. Thermosets, thermoplastics and elastomers. The polymers of thermosets are polymers which are very branched like a big tree with lots of branches. These polymers can make lots of bonds with each other. Thermosets stay as the name suggests ‘set’ the consucens of this is that the can not be reformed after they are produced. The polymers of thermoplastics are not or very rarely branched, you can think of them more like a cactus instead of a tree and even when there is a branch they are only very short. These polymers don’t bond with each other. Thermoplastics are in contrast to thermosets reshapable when heated. This makes them easy to proces even after they are molded in a certain shape. Polymers of elastomers are just like the thermoplastics not branced and don not make bonds with each other, because of this the have an elastic property.

§3.2.2 duurzaambedrijfsleven.nl | Bioplastic

URL:http://www.duurzaambedrijfsleven.nl/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/Infographic_Bioplastic_Deel_2_MB03.pdfConsulted by: Feike Smithuis

There are two kinds of bioplastic: starch and cellulose based bioplastic. Starch based bioplastic is produced out of starch extracted form for example: sugar cane, sugar beet, potatoes, tapioca or corn. The starch is extracted from crops by first pulverizing the crops, letting it soak and lastly centrifuge it. The obtained starch is turned into a thermoplastic by processes like hydrolysis and fermentation. The cellulose for the production of cellulose is extracted from koten and wood. The cellulose is obtained by pulverizing the materials into a mush substance which is then boiled. Then a few kinds of chemicals are added whereafter you get a mush of cellulose. The disadvantage of cellulose based bioplastic is that it has a high CO2 emission.

Another disadvantage is that it is not biodegradable just as the chemicals used to produce cellulose.

§3.2.3 wikipedia.org | Starch

URL: http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zetmeel Consulted by: Yusuf Kaya

Starch is a polymer of glucose. Starch is in nature as a food for plants. starch consists of two main types, amylose and amylopectin. Starch consists to a large proportion of amylopectin starch. The polymer of amylopectin is highly irregular and branched. The polymers of amylose are in contrast with the polymers of amylopectin very regular and unbranched. Nowadays there exist methods to separate the two types from each other. A typical characteristic of starch is that it becomes soluble when heated. This is because the relatively small amylose molecules are extracted by the solvent. Bacteria will break down the starch. This makes starch a biodegradable substance.

Section 4: Method of WorkingAfter the substudy Literature search we did another substudy. This was however different from the first one. We have demonstrated the starch in the banana leaves.

To indicate the presence of starch in banana leafs they were first pulverized and mixed with water. This needs to be done so that the starch dissolves into the water and can be indicated by the iodine. When starch comes into contact with iodine it turns into a blue/purple colour. The transparency of the liquid indicates the concentration of starch, how darter how more starch.We compared young and old banana leafs to find out which one has the highest percentage of starch.

Material before adding iodine after adding iodine

10% starch solution(Blanco) colourless solution blue solution

young banana leaf colourless solution blue/purple solution

old banana leaf colourless solution light blue solution

from the table as you can see above we conclude that the young banana leaf contains more starch because the iodine turns to a darker blue/purple which indicates a higher concentration in the solution.

Production:

After finishing this we started doing the real part of the study, the production of the starch based bioplastic. To make bioplastic from starch there have to take place a few chemical reactions. To find out what the best concentration of starch in water is we have five beakers each filled with 100 ml water and filled one with, 5 grams, one with 10 grams, one with 10 grams, one with 15 grams, one with 20 grams and one with 25 grams starch. Starch is a molecule that mainly exists out of the polymer amylopectin. This polymer is a thermoset and we want a thermoplastic so we need to make the polymer less branched. This can be done by hydrolysing the starch that is in the dissolved in water. After the it was mixed and hydrolyzed the large polymer was broken into separate smaller polymer which are less branched, this makes it a thermoplastic instead of a thermoset. This means we can shape it in different forms To do this we need to first dissolve the polymer in water. This is done by heating it to 300 degrees centigrade. This heating boils the water out of the solution and therefore makes the leftover polymers a think substance. You can't heat it for to long or else the polymers will break down even further making it unusable. So to get the last bit of water out

of it you just need to lett it dry on a lower tempature so the water will escape and the polymers won't be broken down. With a plastic sheet 10cm x 10cm x 0,1cm we needed to let to let it dry for one hour with a ventilator and 10 hours without a ventilator. The end result can be molten back into different forms. The starch based bioplastic with the 10 grams of added starch in the 100ml of water was the strongest

om dit te doen moeten we ervoor zorgen dat het poeder dat we hebben één geheel wordt. Dit doen we door onze kleine polymeren eerst op te lossen en daarna het watergehalte van de verkregen stof zodanig te verlagen zodat we bijna alleen nog maar onze polymeren in de stof hebben zitten. Om onze polymeren op te lossen moeten we het verhitten tot 300 graden celsius, dit is een typische eigenschap van zetmeel polymeren. Nadat de polymeren zijn opgelost laten we ook een groot gedeelte van het water eruit koken. We laten dit doen totdat de stof dezelfde viscositeit heeft als behanglijm. We laten niet al het water eruit koken omdat onze polymeer niet tegen hoge temperaturen kan. Als we het te lang door zouden laten koken dan zouden onze polymeren ontbinden. We willen er zoveel mogelijk water uit halen, maar we kunnen het er niet uit laten koken. Dus we hebben onze stof onder de ventilator gestopt zodat het water verdampt, zonder dat onze stof wordt blootgesteld aan hoge temperaturen. Om een stuk stof van 10cm x 10cm x 0.1cm uit te laten drogen tot plastic moesten we het een uur onder de ventilator laten staan. We hebben het zelfde resultaat ook gehaald door de stof onder normale omstandigheden 10 uur op kamertemperatuur te laten drogen. Het geproduceerde bioplastic kan fijngemalen en gesmolten om als volt verwerkt te worden net als gewoon plastic.

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Section 5: Conclusion and ResultsWaarom zetmeel en geen cellulose?Zetmeel is een beter alternatief om bioplastic van te maken dan cellulose, want cellulose is niet biologisch afbreekbaar en de productie ervan kost veel energie. Bij de productie van cellulose plastic worden er chemicalien gebruikt die gevaarlijk zijn voor de mens en het milieu. De productie van zetmeel plastic kost relatief minder energie en er komt op geen enkele manier een schadelijke stof vrij. Zetmeel plastic is bovendien biologisch afbreekbaar wat ervoor zorgt dat het het milieu niet vervuild en ook niet belast wordt.

Why starch over cellulose?Starch is a better alternative to make bioplastic rather than cellulose, because cellulose is not biodegradable and the production requires a lot of energy. Also during the productions of cellulose bioplastic dangerous chemicals have to be used which are a threat to the people and the environment. The production of starch based bioplastic cost far less energy and starch based bioplastic is biodegradable which doesn't affect the environment.

Zetmeel is goedkoop te produceren in Kenia, omdat er veel bannenbomen zijn waarvan de bladeren niet effectief worden gebruikt. Doordat we geen enkele andere stoffen dn water en zetmeel nodig hebben om zetmeel plastic te produceren, is het idiaal, aangezien er niet zo veel mogelijkheden zijn in kenia. Het produceren van het plastic is ook niet heel ingewikkeld, wat ervoor zorgt dat alle keniaanse burgers dit plastic zelf kunnen produceren. Hiermee bereiken we ook dat iedereen wordt geholpen en niet alleen de mensen die een laboratorium tot hun beschikking hebben.

Starch can cheaply be produced in Kenya, because of the large amount of banana trees in the country where the leaves largely do not get used effectively. Because there isn't a need of another ingredient except water and starch is this an ideal solution for the ban of plastic Bags in Kenya. The production of plastic is also not very complicated which means that it can be easily produced by low educational people. The low difficulty of the productions means that it can reach anyone in Kenya and not only the people that have access to high tech factories.

Section 6: DiscussionWith every project there are its good and bad points. We have succeeded in the assignment by making a new material from banana leafs which is also more environmentally friendly than currently used plastic. However we have not compared the currently used plastic to our own for example if it has the same strength. Our plastic is however so biodegradable that you can even eat it. In the next project we probably could better argue why our material is better than the current plastic. Another point we would like to adress is that we had a hard time to understand the assignment correctly, we had a vagau idea of what we had to do but we only precisely what it wat it was after three weeks. Because of that our timetable got a bit shortened and resolved this problem by shortening on the research.

Section 7: Literature

http://omicsonline.org/open-access/bacterial-cellulose-production-and-its-industrial-applications-2155-9821.1000150.pdfhttp://www.google.com/url?q=http%3A%2F%2Fomicsonline.org%2Fopen-access%2Fbacterial-cellulose-production-and-its-industrial-applications-2155-9821.1000150.pdf&sa=D&sntz=1&usg=AFQjCNGDIbbzZJdhZZaaJQg0YCidBhgnIQhttp://www.duurzaambedrijfsleven.nl/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/Infographic_Bioplastic_Deel_2_MB03.pdfhttp://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/star.19920440805/abstracthttps://www.google.nl/search?q=starch+plastic&rlz=1CAACAG_enNL614NL614&oq=starch+plastic&aqs=chrome..69i57.3800j0j1&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8#q=banana+leaf+starch+plastic

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/7126533