Name: ______________________________________ Period: ___________ Date: _________________

Making Plastics
Plastics are substances made up of large molecules with a repeating pattern of
smaller molecules. These large molecules are known as __________________________ while
the smaller sub-units are known as _______________________________ .

Most of the plastics

that we use today come from __________________________________ OR ________________

________, but they can come from any molecule that will form long chains.
Today, we will be making plastic using the sub-unit of casein, a
_____________________ found in milk. Proteins are actually natural polymers made up of
amino acid monomers. The diagram below shows the arrangement of the atoms that
make up the amino acid Proline. Letters are element symbols from the periodic table
and lines represent chemical bonds between the atoms. As you can see, the elements in

O = ___________________________

Proline are

C = ___________________________
H = ___________________________
N = ___________________________

The diagram above shows how the milk plastic that we make will consist of very large
molecules made from smaller pieceswhich were already polymers. This is similar to
how most petroleum based plastics are made since the oil used to make the plastics is
already a polymer before it is made into a plastic.
General procedure to make casein plastic out of milk:
1) Pour 400 ml of milk into a 500ml (or larger) beaker.
2) Place the beaker of milk on a hot plate (at about 40% power) & stir occasionally
with a stirring rod.
3) Add a thermometer to the beaker and heat it to 35C (be sure not to overheat it).
4) While waiting for this to heat up, measure 50ml of vinegar in a graduated cylinder.
5) Also while waiting for it to heat up, prepare aluminum foil linings for your plastic
molds. (as demonstrated by the teacher)
6) When the temperature hits 35C remove the beaker from the hot plate, add the
vinegar to the milk and use a stirring rod to mix it for about 3 minutes.
7) Place 2 paper towels inside the strainer and then pour the milk solution through
the strainer into the sink. Try to remove as much water as possible by squeezing
the paper towel that surrounds the casein over the sink.
8) Collect the aggregated casein from the paper towel and pack it into your mold
lined with aluminum foil. Be sure that you have packed the casein in a consistent
and dense manner.
Procedure continued

9) Remove the aluminum foil lining from the mold and unwrap the foil from your
casein plastic. Place the casein plastic on the drying rack. Be sure to have a label
to identify your plastic.
10)
CLEAN UP. Be sure there are no solids left behind in the sink. Rinse all
glassware. Wipe down your lab station.
Background Info:
Chemical companies have found that making a slight variation in how they produce a
plastic can greatly change the stress-strain behaviors of the plastic. Stress strain
behaviors include:
tensile strength - the amount of pulling force placed upon a material before it breaks
abrasion resistance - toughness of material against scraping, scuffing or scarring
puncture resistance - ability of a material to keep moving objects from perforating the
surface

Some of the ways that plastic manufacturers change the strength characteristics of the
plastics that they produce are:
Changing the chemical composition of the plastic
Changing the rate at which the plastic solidifies
Changing the size/shape of the plastic

You will design an experiment to test how some factor regarding your casein plastic affects one or
more of the stress-strain behaviors of the plastic. Materials available include
Milk (Skim, Whole, & 2%)
Aluminum Foil
plate
Thermometers
Stirring rods
Sucrose
Corn starch
Sand paper (of different grits)
Plastic Molds
Weights (of different masses)
Electronic balance
Vinegar
Elastic bands
Metric ruler/meter stick

Hot
Glassware
Oven
String

Clamp

Part 1 Questions (Completed as a group. Write out answers on a separate sheet)

1) What scientific question are you trying to answer? (Inq 1)
2) What is your hypothesis? Write it in an If thenbecause format. (Inq 3)
3) Identify your independent and dependent variables in your experiment, and important
constants. (Inq 5)
4) Write a procedure that allows you to test out your hypothesis. (Inq 4) Note that you
may write Follow the general procedure for producing casein plastic, except to reduce
the number of steps in your procedure.
Part 2 Questions (Completed INDIVIDUALLY. Type out answers on a separate sheet)
1) Produce a data table of your results. (Inq 6)
2) Identify your most significant sources of error. Are these errors significant enough
to make your work invalid? (Inq 7)
3) Present the data in a way that clearly shows the effect of the independent variable
on the dependent variable. (Inq 8)
4) Clearly state whether the data supports or rejects the hypothesis, or are
inconclusive. (Inq 9)