Glue from milk

[deleted-312716]

Hi my name is JazzLyn. I would like to ask you a few questions about my science fair project I'm doing about glue from milk.
How is cow tissues, hides and bones processed to make?
How does milk form curdles when it expires?
What makes dried serum an ingredient to make glue?

[SciB]

Hi Jazzlynn. Welcome to Scibuddies!

I am curious about your project. How are you going to make glue from milk? What is the process and how long does it take?

Your first question does not refer to milk. Are you also planning to make glue from cow hide?

Milk can curdle for several reasons--the presence of bacteria like Lactobacillus, the addition of an acid such as vinegar or an enzyme like rennet. The curds are simply the protein part of the milk all clotted together. The liquid part is called whey.

Serum is the liquid part of blood after the red blood cells have been removed. It contains mostly proteins and salts. Are you planning to add serum to milk to make glue?

I'm a little confused as to how all these questions are related to the milk glue that you are making. Can you explain more about what you are doing and why? All your questions can be answered by a little searching and reading online. Try it and you will find out a lot of interesting information and then you will be able to write the answers to your questions in your own words.

Good luck!

Sybee

[deleted-312716]

This is how I'm going to do my project.
1.Put a pint of milk into a saucepan.Add six tablespoons of white vinegar and stir.
2.Heat the saucepan on a stove using low to medium heat. Stir continuously and watch closely. After a while, you will observe clumps forming in the milk.
3.Remove the saucepan from the heat as soon as you observe clumps forming in the milk. These clumps indicate that the milk is curdling.
4.Continue stirring until the curdling stops.
5.Pour off the liquid portion (this is called whey) of the milk, leaving the curds behind in the pot. Remove as much of the liquid as possible.
6.Add ¼ cup water and 1 tablespoon of sodium bicarbonate (baking soda). Stir well.Don’t be alarmed if small bubbles appear because this means that the bicarbonate is neutralizing the vinegar. The resulting product will be glue.
7.Transfer the glue to a baby food jar.
8.Glue two pieces of paper using a small amounts of mixture you made in step 6 and let me them. Once the glue is completely dry (roughly 5 minutes), you should find that the papers are permanently stuck together.
It should take about 30 minutes or longer.

My first question is about glue because I want to know how those few things are processed to make glue so I can make my hypothesis on which glue will be stronger.

[SciB]

Could you please write out your hypothesis clearly. If you don't do that then the experts have to guess what question you are testing in your project and we may give you the wrong information.

From the questions in your first post, I would guess that you are comparing casein (milk) glue to hide glue. Is that right? And you are making the casein glue yourself from milk. Are you also making glue from 'cow tissues, hides and bones'?

If you are comparing two glues, how will you measure the strength of the bond?

What is your question? Do you want a recipe for how to make hide glue? Here's a website that tells you that: http://www.practicalprimitive.com/skill ... eglue.html

You asked why milk curdles when it goes sour. The reason is the acid that bacteria in the milk secrete. The acid denatures the milk proteins (casein) and makes them clot. The proteins are what makes the glue strong.

In hide glue it is the proteins, mostly collagen, in the cow's tissues that make the glue.

Hope this helps.