2022 Teens Dream-plastic for energy
The Sustainable Development Goals Officially known as the Transformation of the United Nations Organization, these goals were mentioned in the United Nations General Assembly resolution of September 25, 2015, January 1, 2016 development included the 17 Sustainable Development Goals in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
The world has set sustainable development goals to try to achieve in the coming years and set out their importance to the whole world. In our project we’re working on five of the SDGs. Traditional plastic is a significant contributor to these global problems.The most important thing that bioplastics work on is achieving the goal of sustainable development (life on land).The disadvantages of traditional plastic include:
1/Damage to the environment: As a result of the bags hanging on everything they encounter on their way, they distort the aesthetic appeal of the environment.
2/Damage to wild animals: The volatilization of plastic bags and their spread in pastures, rural and wild areas leads to the death of many animals, such as cows, sheep, goats and wild animals, or affects their productivity. aerobes in animals that swallow them, and the result is their death, illness, or loss of appetite, and thus a decrease in their production, whether of meat or milk.
3/Damage to marine animals: as soon as part of the plastic bags and other plastic waste reaches the seas and oceans, whether from nearby waste disposal sites, or by throwing waste or garbage into the sea, whether from passing ships or from fishing vessels, etc., animals may swallow These plastic bags and waste, or their movement is hindered, and they die, as the number of marine animals that die annually because of this waste has been estimated at about one million seabirds and about one hundred thousand whales and seals.
4/Damage to the soil: Excess plastic in the soil in the waste dumping sites exceeds 5%, which makes this soil unsuitable for construction and establishment of facilities on top of it, and some of the hazardous chemicals that are used in the manufacture of polyethylene granules, which number more than 20, may decompose and leak into the soil or water. groundwater and lead to pollution.
5/Damage to the air: The process of burning plastic bags pollutes the air with toxic gases and fumes that are harmful to human health, such as formaldehyde CH2O, benzaldehyde C6H5CHO, hydrogen cyanide HCN, ammonia NH3, carbon monoxide CO, nitrogen oxides NO2 -N2O – N2O3 – N2O4, and some compounds. Volatile hydrocarbons (VOCs) and others, and these substances cause various disorders and diseases such as allergies, respiratory diseases, nervous system, digestive system, heart, liver, kidney and other diseases.
The bioplastics industry is a good solution to the problem of traditional plastics and the exploitation and recycling of many materials. However, bioplastics have some disadvantages that some countries do not manufacture them as a substitute, and others produce them in small quantities, not as a primary substitute for conventional plastics. In our project, we’re working on solving these flaws to take advantage of it to complete and also make it a source of biofuels that produce electricity. By producing the starch of the potato skins to use it in constructing the bioplastic and to utilize the wastewater produced from different factories we use it to allow the bioplastic to degrade easily in short time and then this water is used to produce electricity through a biofuel constructed circuit. By the end of this project we need to get over chlorinated plastic problems and solve the problems that other things may cause.
The world faces several difficulties, including pollution—more specifically, water pollutants. As it is a huge problem, we decided to solve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) such as: Life Under water, Good Health and well-being, Climate action, Life on land, Affordable and clean energy. Plastic has the potential to release dangerous chemicals into the atmosphere or the ocean, which has a negative impact on the ecosystem and many other living things, including people. we had to solve this problem by creating bioplastic made from starch from potato peels. to reduce the pollution that plastic causes as bioplastic degrades in water and furthermore, this water that contains degraded bioplastic would be too useful in generating electricity from dirt in the soil by taking the advantage of the highly acidic wastewater used in degrading the bioplastic. The objective of the experiment is to prepare a home-made biodegradable plastic and study its properties in order to find a suitable alternative to petroleum-based plastics. Among the properties that we are trying to obtain are flexibility, degradability and the possibility of using it in daily life. We decided to make our own plastic using materials available at home. For the manufacture of bioplastics from potato starch. requires plastic production; Solvent (water), plasticizer (glycerin), polymer (starch) and acid (vinegar).
Moreover, the design requirements are (Being able to biodegrade in less time than chlorinated plastic -Use totally recycling techniques in all stages (production of the plastic and decomposition)..-The biofuel circuit produces a net voltage of 0.489V.
- The first design requirement is achieved by using the potato peels as a main component of bioplastic, so it made the bioplastic have ability to decompose in three days which is a short period compared to the period of decomposition of ordinary plastic, which reaches millions of years.
- The second design requirement is achieved by using recycled material ( potato peels – wastewater with high acidity) in the process.
- The third design is achieved by using wastewater with high acidity in the process of generate electricity.