A 14-Year-Old California Engineer Transformed Paper and Cotton Into Plastic
by Sarah Sloat (Inverse.com) Jacqueline Prawira has competed in science fairs since she was in fourth grade. … That science fair was one of many competitions that eventually took Prawira to the nation-wide 2018 BROADCOM Masters tournament in Washington, D.C., where she showed off her work in creating biofiber plastics, created from paper, cotton, and corn husks. About 4,000 student scientists competed in science fairs around the United States to reach that level, and this year Prawira won one of the top awards the competition has to offer.
…
Bioplastics, also known as bio-based plastics, are plastics that aren’t made from the usual Earth-polluting materials, like petroleum. In recent years, scientists have discovered that sugar from plants can be broken down into molecules that can link together to form plastics, reducing our dependence on oil — and the carbon footprint that comes with it.
Prawira’s previous experiments on creating her own bioplastics at home produced “broken rice bioplastic,” a conglomerate of broken rice starch, water, acetic acid, and other compounds. In her award-winning experiment, she attached other types of fibers to the broken rice starch to improve the strength and flexibility of the resulting plastic.
…
She was hunting for a way to use up the cellulose fibers in cotton, corn, and paper that are usually tossed into landfills during processing, where they can wind up in waterways. Her experiments culminated in the discovery that bioplastic made with paper fibers is the strongest, while adding cotton fibers makes bioplastic more flexible. Now a high school freshman, Prawira’s next goal is to develop a bioplastic that can fully degrade in the soil and in the ocean. READ MORE
