Greener Industry: Products from Starch and Cellulose

As I researched further in the green industry site that I mentioned before, I came across several topics, one being about the production of items form starch and cellulose. These products are highly renewable because the starch comes from plants and the cellulose from wood pulp. Starch products include adhesives, paints, drug encapsulation, toothpaste, and wastewater treatment. Cellulose products include photo film, fabric fibres, and spectacle frames. I am highly interested in this topic because I believe that not only is it important to make new technologies to reduce our impact on the earth, but it is just as important to make recyclable, biodegradable, and renewable types of the products we use so often. For the customer, this is such an easy way to help save our world!

I visited these blogs:

Josh, Travis, Ryan, Eric

The blogs that I visited all seemed to display interest in ways that chemistry could save our earth. There was research about using chemistry to develop new technologies both more beneficial to us humans and our earth, research about planets (which is very useful considering we might need them someday for one reason or another), and studying exceptions to the rules in "quantum chemistry". In the real world, not all things follow the chemistry rules that we study in the classroom! It is great to know that chemists are doing things to improve our world and reduce our damage, and that they are studying other planets and their creation.

Green Chemistry

I think that using chemistry to create substances to use that aren't toxic to human health or the environment is very useful. The link that I found gives a lot of information on how current substances (or specific ingredients they're composed of) hurt the environment in different ways. I am really interested in the examples the website gives about how green chemistry is used to make substanes that serve the same purposes as their counterparts but are harmless to the environment. For example, there is a Belgian company that manufactures biodegradable household products from renewable sources. The website also offers a lot of info on better ways to reduce waste. Right now, chemists are reseaching types of solvents that could be used for waste, "investigating alternative reactions with higher yield or atom economy link to atom economy characteristic", and much more. They have even developed polymer-based carpets that can be recycled! In my opinion, preserving the earth is a great application for chemistry and I am very interested in further researching this topic.

Question #2

I think that scientists that explore and accomplish really cool things in chemistry are very interesting. I think that every single experiment that they do or any fact that they uncover is always important and has meaning. These cool things that they devote their time to experiment with definitely relate to us and our lives. For example, studying animals and their sometimes weird or previously unexplainable characteristics might provide us with info about how our species evolved. These things that some might consider "meaningless" provide us with more and more information about the planet we inhabit! Even with scientists constantly discovering new things, we still don't even know a fraction of all the characteristics or functions on our earth. Also, these new cool things can benefit our community. What if this research could lead to more cures for diseases, or a way to extend the life of the earth itself? We could even uncover more things about the very beginnings of life.

I think that scientist spend so much of their lives pursuing these questions that might seem random because they truly have a passion for chemistry. They probably want to find out as much as they can about everything around them and always want to explain the unexplainable. I personally think that experimenting with the many wonders of animals, the universe, etc. sounds very appealing.Who wouldn't want to solve the mysteries of life and the earth?


I commented on the first posts about our chem class on Travis', Corinne's and Chrissy's blogs. (On Travis', you have to scroll down to the second comment that I made because the first was the first assignment comment on his blog layout).

First Post

Because our period five honors chem class is so small, we are extremely productive and all work around the same pace. Therefore, we learn a lot during each class period and finish our labs quickly. This doesn't mean that we don't learn as much because, in my opinion, we get the most out of all the material we cover. Though small, our class consists of different individuals with different strengths (for example extreme organization, memorization skills, and creativity). When all of our different views and strengths are combined, we can help eachother establish a better understanding of what we are learning. Also, everyone in our class is actually interested in what we are learning, so we are always eager to learn more and go beyond the basics. Even with the amount we are learning, our class is always fun and we get to do really cool labs. If our class wasn't as small as it is, we probably wouldn't be as productive and therefore wouldn't cover as much material. Our class really has helped me a lot because everyone is willing to help me with things that are a bit fuzzy, and with labs we all share our ideas with eachother. Our class has definitely made me feel more successful and a part of something great!