The 2009 Summer Science Exhibition

A short audio introduction to Plastics from potatoes and rubber from rice from exhibitor Andrew Ballantyne: 

Our polymers are so great because we use modifiers to unzip the starch chains, which improves the overall properties of the materials. Starch is already used in a wide variety of materials in the household. We have devised two experiments which can be carried out with easily obtainable household products to demonstrate the wide variety of materials you can be made from starch.

The global production of plastic is around 100 million tonnes per year. (One tonne of plastic is equivalent to 20,000 two litre drinks bottles or 120,000 carrier bags.) This is a difficult number to imagine but picture 3 plastic bags the size of the UK and that gives you an idea of the extent of our plastic addiction. Most of the plastic comes from oil and equates to about 4% of the world’s production. After 2010 the production of oil will begin to decline as we use up this valuable resource. So where will plastic come from when the oil runs out?

Researchers from the University of Leicester are working to modify starch and cellulose from plants into compostable plastics to replace petroleum-based polymers.