Plastic Cooking at home (a path to PLA )

After some investigation i've done a home cooked PLA attempt, unfortunately the results were not the expected, the photos below show when the mixture was put to drie and 10 days later, almost dry.





As you can see the second piece is broken, to check their resistance eventually rip.

I was waiting to get a harder plastic but it was obtained a slightly flexible plastic and brittle

I used a recipe given to mold injection consisting of

8 parts water
1 part vinegar
1 part glycerin
3 / 2 parts of starch

As the starch defines the hardness of plastic and i used corn starch (flour cornstarch) i believe that this was the reason for not obtaining a more rigid plastic, already have some mashed potatoes for potato starch to experiment.

With these samples i'll try to melt them again and see if their characteristics are altered

Now i'm going to be more focused on the design of a wind generator so it may take a while to bring news. As soon as i have more results i will came here to put them

if you whant to experiment use the video that inspired me [www.youtube.com]

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/12/2010 07:40AM by barreiras.

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Ricardo dos Santos @ barreiras.com.pt

by the way, if some one knows the name of this tipe os plastic, please identify it somo of the possibilities are:

Polyglycolic acid (PGA)
Zein
Polyhydroxybutyrate (PH
Polycaprolactone (PCL)
Plastarch Material (PSM)

my votes go to the first and the last ones, more research is neaded.

Yes it would be good to know what plastic this is so we can look up the properties. Is it a thermoplastic, what temperature does it melt at, does it have a glass transition, what solvents dissolve it?

Even if it is no good for building objects it might be useful as support material.

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[www.hydraraptor.blogspot.com]

It's been a little over a year since the last post. Does have more information on this home made plastic?

I've searched the internet, but cannot find a mechanical processor.

Hi Marcus, this experiment was a failure, this recepie makes a hard material, but we cant call it a plastic, and it is not thermal, it could be used in mold injection for some needs but in my case after getting cold it shrinked

PSM seems like the only viable material. Any luck trying to synthesize that? Have you found the recipe?