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Two main materials:
PHA: A biodegradable polymer resin.
I used this material as an adhesive to hold the orange powder together. I used UV lights to harden it during the drying process.
These were the orange peels after the hardening and drying process.
Other materials consisted of different resin hardeners and multiple different forms of polymers.
First "successful" material.
Was only soft enough to mold for around 30 seconds before it hardened.
Second "successful" material.
Contained significantly more orange peel and was moldable enough to fit into a phone case mold.
My first March Madness week consisted of attempting to make different types of materials, all using orange peels. During my second week, I began my composting process with this machine here: it is one of the only home composters I could find that could process bioplastics. I wanted to test the compostability of the materials in comparison to some of the biodegradable plastics that large companies use. I also wanted to test if the amount of orange peel affected its viability. I added the plastics to fruit and vegetable scraps to help improve the final product.
Out of all four of the materials I made, the material with the most amount of orange peel had the most successful composting process; the results resembled a type of mulch and soil, while the rest of the materials created a hard substance that would not have been able to be used for plant growth.
This was the result of the composting process of biodegradable plastics I could find online from larger companies; they all had somewhat similar results. This is the image of the compost from a biodegradable phone case I found on Amazon. They all contained shreds of hardened, plastic-like materials that were not at all integrated into the soil.
I chose to plant cress, as it was the fastest growing plant I could find for my experiment. I planted these seeds with roughly 60% compost from my material and 40% soil.
This was the progress after around three days.
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