The way the media always talks about algae bioplastics as this super hi-tech science fiction “industry of the future” always made me think the process was super complicated and required precise lab conditions and expensive chemicals or something
Turns out? It’s pretty much just “get some seaweed and cook it”
It is a little bit more complicated than that, and there are various ways to do it with different results, but seriously - from the looks of it, if you can boil pasta, you can make your own plastic. The only thing stopping bioplastic from being a huge cottage industry like soap or beer is that nobody knows about it
This is pretty much the same procedure with starch-based bioplastic. It can be as simple as 3:1 cassava starch and glycerol (which naturally gelatenizes with heat).
You can also make your own glycerol/ glycerin easily. Just need some lye, oil, water and salt and about 30 mins on the stove.
Okay, how about biofuels? Is there any known way to brew up a batch of regular unleaded in a backyard algae tank?
Yes! The first link above is actually a site almost entirely about that. And another common way to make biodiesel is with used cooking oil that you can get free/cheap from local restaurants
I think Kiwami Japan did a variation of this to make one of his Sharpest [ ] Knife In The World knives. All with equipment he had lying around in his weird little kitchen.
