Starch based reactor, resultant products, and methods and processes relating thereto

• US 10,640,615 B2
• Filed: 12/05/2013
• Issued: 05/05/2020
• Est. Priority Date: 12/06/2012
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: PT. Harapan Interaksi Swadaya
• Original Assignee: PT. Harapan Interaksi Swadaya
• Inventors: Tandio, Sugianto, Suryana, Eman, Mogck, Jon, Melander, David
• Primary Examiner(s): Mulcahy, Peter D.
• Application Number:
  US14/649,365
• Publication Number:
  US 20150299401A1
• Time in Patent Office: 2,343 Days
• CPC Class Codes: C08B 30/06 Drying; Forming
• CPC Class Codes: C08B 30/16 Apparatus therefor
• CPC Class Codes: C08G 81/02 at least one of the polymers being obtained by reactions involving only carbon-to-carbon unsaturated bonds
• CPC Class Codes: C08J 2303/02 Starch; Degradation products thereof, e.g. dextrin
• CPC Class Codes: C08J 5/18 Manufacture of films or sheets
• CPC Class Codes: C08L 2205/08 containing additives to improve the compatibility between two polymers
• CPC Class Codes: C08L 23/06 Polyethene
• CPC Class Codes: C08L 3/02 Starch; Degradation products thereof, e.g. dextrin

Abstract

A process for making a starch-based resin from a starch-based plant feed stock generally comprising the steps of extracting starch content from prepared feed stock, preparing a dried starch from the extracted starch content that may be polymerized in a reactor with a catalytic material, a petroleum-based plastic resin, a quantity of glycerol, and an oil which is high in free hydrogen, and partially cross-linking the polymerized starch with a petroleum-based plastic resin to form a starch-based resin that may be used to produce starch-based film and bag products and other articles of manufacture that have unique degradation properties is disclosed herein.

Claims

1. The process of making a degradable starch-based resin comprising:

peeling a starch-based plant feed stock selected from one or more Sago plants;

extracting a quantity of starch content from the peeled starch-based feed stock;

drying at least a portion of the quantity of starch content by substantially removing the water content from the starch content resulting in a base material in the form of a dried starch polymer;

processing the base material in a reactor into a quantity of soft starch polymer;

subsequent to the processing step, further polymerizing the soft starch polymer by combining and reacting in a reactive-extruder with maleic anhydride, a polyethylene-based plastic resin, a quantity of glycerol, and an oil to define a further polymerized starch, and;

partially cross-linking the further polymerized starch with the polyethylene-based plastic resin to form the degradable starch-based resin.

2. The process of claim 1 wherein:

the starch content is extracted from the peeled starch-based feed stock by pressurization.

3. The process of claim 1 wherein:

the oil is farm-grown.

4. The process of claim 1 wherein:

the starch-based plant feed stock is non-GMO.

5. The process of claim 1 wherein:

the starch-based resin is bio-degradable when exposed to soil.

6. The process of claim 1 further comprising:

manufacturing an article using the degradable starch-based resin.

7. The process of claim 6 wherein:

the article is made from a film, the film produced on essentially the same extruder used to manufacture comparable polyethylene-based film, wherein the extrusion temperature to manufacture or convert the film is less than an extrusion temperature for a standard polyethylene-based film extrusion process.

8. The process of claim 1 wherein:

the degradable starch-based resin is triggered to degrade upon contact with an environment favoring microbial growth.

9. The process of claim 6 further comprising:

recycling an article made from the degradable starch-based resin.

10. The process of claim 1 wherein:

the degradable starch-based resin is at least partially bio-available resulting in the degradable starch-based resin being susceptible to structural breakdown when exposed to a larger variety of microbes than cornstarch-based plastic resins.

11. The process of claim 1 wherein:

the degradable starch-based resin is susceptible in a first stage of degradation to a variety of microbes.

12. The process of claim 11 wherein:

the degradable starch-based resin is susceptible in a second and subsequent stage of degradation from the effects of wind, water, vibration, pressure, or soil movement.

13. The process of claim 7 wherein:

the extrusion temperature may be lowered by approximately 5-10 degrees Celsius compared to the standard polyethylene-based film extrusion process.