Comments on: Laser Cuttable Bio-Plastics http://www.makerbot.com/blog/2010/02/04/laser-cuttable-bio-plastics/ Democratizing Manufacturing Wed, 08 Feb 2012 22:38:41 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 By: Dominic Muren http://www.makerbot.com/blog/2010/02/04/laser-cuttable-bio-plastics/#comment-3100 Dominic Muren Fri, 05 Feb 2010 16:11:26 +0000 http://www.makerbot.com/blog/?p=1025#comment-3100 Making your own corn based plastic is fairly straightforward, but there are some steps which require high degrees of purity. Specifically, you need to create severely anhydrous lactic acid before polymerizing it -- even the tiniest amount of water will gum up the reaction and produce inferior product. And that kind of drying is tough to carry out with DIY equipment. But who knows. Maybe this difficulty will be overcome, maybe a new plastic (like the one above) will be found. At least somebody is working on these questions, where there was no one before except DOW. Making your own corn based plastic is fairly straightforward, but there are some steps which require high degrees of purity. Specifically, you need to create severely anhydrous lactic acid before polymerizing it — even the tiniest amount of water will gum up the reaction and produce inferior product. And that kind of drying is tough to carry out with DIY equipment.

But who knows. Maybe this difficulty will be overcome, maybe a new plastic (like the one above) will be found. At least somebody is working on these questions, where there was no one before except DOW.

]]> By: Roboternat http://www.makerbot.com/blog/2010/02/04/laser-cuttable-bio-plastics/#comment-3096 Roboternat Thu, 04 Feb 2010 22:48:04 +0000 http://www.makerbot.com/blog/?p=1025#comment-3096 Hmmm... maybe a gravity feeder producing your own 3mm filament, or some kind of syringe (like frostruder) to make your own stuff... :D Hmmm… maybe a gravity feeder producing your own 3mm filament, or some kind of syringe (like frostruder) to make your own stuff… :D

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