Izzy

At this point, one of the main challenges facing our environment is the overwhelming mass of plastic production and waste. We know the extent of the harm plastics cause, from the animal intake to microplastics that permeate every circle of the environment. Recently, many attempts have been made at creating environmentally-friendly replacements to plastics. With my experiment, I wanted to investigate one such attempt – water soluble packaging – and track any potential environmental detriments. Using three different types of water soluble packaging, I examined how the products worked, checked their efficacy, and tested factors such as whether they left behind a residue or impacted the pH of the water.

be higher than in real life applicability, but I wanted to make sure that the impact was clearly traceable. I watched how quickly the products dissolved, checking if there was a residue and how long it lasted. For the first two, Products 1 and 2, they produced a residue at the beginning but eventually reached almost full dissolution; meanwhile, Product 3 left behind a tangible product. (Figure 1) Then, using infrared spectroscopy, I tracked the absorbance of light from each solution to further explore how much residue each product left behind; the higher the absorbance of light, the more residue was left behind and thus preventing light from passing through.

non-polar solvents. And, as structural similarity increases, so does solubility. Since these products are largely soluble in water, I assumed them to contain a high concentration of oxygen and hydrogen molecules. Thus, when they dissolved, I predicted that these oxygens and hydrogens would be put into the water, thus altering the pH. For the first two products, Products 1 and 2, the water became more acidic after about 30 minutes, with the pH dropping an average of 0.43 and 0.8, respectively. For Product 3, the water became more basic after 30 minutes, with the pH increasing by an average of 2.85.

initial product, I produced 0.56g of dried-out residue (Figure 4). Keeping in mind the margin of error in the final product, either from washed away detriment or material stuck in the strainer, the overall result that the product did, in fact, barely actually dissolve. Rather, the water simply allowed the product to be spread out -- essentially, the products created a false, out-of-sight out-of-mind solution that was not only not environmentally-friendly but in fact potentially more detrimental than pure plastics.

Through the evident issues that these water soluble products provided through water pollution from residue and pH implications, I've found that these products are in fact extremely harmful to our environment; in fact, because we know so much less about them, they very well may prove more harmful than the plastics we know. My goal for this experiment was not to find problems, however -- I want to explore the options we have and hopefully figure out methods that we can prove to be beneficial. If I had more time to continue this experiment, I would start trying to use the data I've collected so far, specifically pH data, to figure out which specific polymer chains may be present in the solutions, given the amount of hydrogens versus oxygens that were released in dissolution (acidic means higher OH concentrations, so we know an about equal concentration of H and O were released, whereas basic means higher H3O+, so more H than O present and released). Finding exact polymer chains would be difficult; however, if I were able to do so, I would work on extraction techniques to remove any residue/product and hopefully find a way to make these products, in fact, environmentally friendly; I believe that there is a way that they can be, it just might not be as simple as a one-step process at this point. Reducing plastic production and impact is a huge issue in the world at this point, but I believe that until we have a method we have proven to work, we should continue to use processes that we know (ie recycling, up-cycling. reusable plastics) to not run the risk of accidentally causing more harm than the initial problem.

Citations:

1) http://www.kentchemistry.com/links/bonding/LikeDissolveslike.htm

2) https://www.nde-ed.org/Physics/Materials/Structure/ceramic.xhtml

3)https://chem.libretexts.org/Bookshelves/General_Chemistry/Book%3A_Chem1_(Lower)/07%3A_Solids_and_Liquids/7.09%3A_Polymers_and_Plastics

4) https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01LQ7N5E8/ref=ox_sc_act_title_2?smid=A3DWBSNIJU0QPR&th=1&psc=1

5) https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07PG6DDK2/ref=ox_sc_act_title_3?smid=AJFT36UIG2C6W&th=1&psc=1

6) https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07QS745V8/ref=ox_sc_act_title_4?smid=ALYRIQF05YTVE&th=1