Help! Procedure in Making SAP Using Orange and Avocado.

[deleted-946958]

Hi, I need help. I am trying to perform Ms. Kiara Nirghin's Google Science Fair Project of making an SAP using orange and avocado peels. As we try to follow the procedure, it has been said that in every 3 oranges you need 15ml of lemon and 100ml of distilled water and cook it for 45mins. and she was able to strain 80ml of liquid from the mixture. But, as we tried to follow her procedure, we observed that when the mixture was heated for 5 minutes the liquid started to disappear, and by 10 minutes there's no liquid left in the mixture. Therefore, we added 200ml of distilled water and boil it for 5 more minutes. And we're only able to strain at most 40ml of the liquid.
The problems are:
(1) Her procedure doesn't really make sense because there will be no liquid left after 10 mins. let alone in 45 mins., what will we do and what possible variable affected our experiment?
(2) We also tried to oven-dry our mixture but after 20 mins. in 180-degree celsius oven, our orange-avocado peels were burnt.
(3) After the oven-drying, we tried to powderize our mixture using the blender since it wasn't specified how to powderize the peels. It wasn't as fine as presented in Kiara's picture since it was the finest it could get, but the colors of our powder didn't match as what Kiara should in her ppt. Ours were more of brown-ish black, and Kiara's were white.
(4) As we tried to test its absorbency, our Orange-Avocado powder didn't turn into a gel and didn't absorb the water as much as it should be. It was just like a normal powder that is not an absorbent polymer. And the liquid that wasn't absorbed were just floating and it was a bit oily.

Ms. Kiara Nirghin's PPT: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/ ... slide=id.p
viewtopic.php?f=28&t=20453&start=15


I hope you could help us. *Urgent*

Thank you for your time,
Reynel

[SciB]

Hi Reynel,

Sorry to hear about the troubles you are having making the orange avocado peel SAP. I'll try to help.

You said all the liquid was being evaporated from your mixture when you heated it. Did you try reducing the heat? Scientifically, the method should have given the exact temperature to use as well as the time. It sounds like the heat was too high and maybe also the surface area of the container you used to heat the mixture was too large.

Lakshita is the person who has done the SAP preparation many times, and she could give you better advice on how to do it correctly, but I think just reducing the heating temperature would be enough to prevent excessive water loss.

Reply to my message and I will see if there's anything else I can suggest.

Good luck,

Sybee

[deleted-946958]

Hi Mr. Sybee,

Thank you for replying!
About the temperature, we use the lowest heat in the stove to heat the mixture, and we tried different pans to heat the mixture.
We also observed that, liquid dissolved faster in smaller container that those in the bigger one.
We also both tried
(1) to cover the mixture and observe every 5 mins.
(2) stir the mixture and not cover it at all

I would also like to ask about Ms. Lakshita's Procedure, we read her topic about making an SAP using orange peels, but from pages 5 to 6 there has been a difference in the procedure that she sent in a file and the procedure that she first conducted where she just used Ms. Kiara's and ratio it 3 times more. I would like to ask which one was her final procedure and if both of it worked for her.

We are supposed to do the experiment tomorrow or on Monday because we need to conduct our final experiment on the first week of February, test the SAP and its effect on soil, and have the results by March.


We really need your help, I hope you could.

Thank you for helping,
Reynel

[deleted-373171]

Hi Reynel,

Below is the procedure I used to make orange and avocado peel SAP.

The peels were removed from 19 organic oranges including as much pith as possible and finely cut.
• 100 ml of organic lemon juice, measured using a graduated beaker, was added to the orange peels and left for 2 hours.
 1000 ml of distilled water, measured using a graduated beaker, was added to the finely cut orange peels and lemon juice, and the mixture was kept on the gas stove for heating. The timer was switched on as soon as the liquid began to simmer and the time taken for the peels to be softened was noted for personal reference.
 The mixture was strained overnight using a kitchen sieve with fine wire mesh. This strained liquid was stored in a mason jar inside a refrigerator for future experimental purpose.
 Nine organic avocados were peeled, finely cut, and added to the cooked orange peels.
 The orange and avocado peel mixture was sun-dried indoors until the peels were fully dried. The total weight of the sun-dried peels was measured using a digital weighing scale and half of the weight was ground into a powder in a blender. This crushed orange and avocado peel powder served as one type of biodegradable superabsorbent polymer and was stored in a mason jar for later experiments.
 The remaining sun-dried peels were mixed with 250 ml of the strained liquid and the combined mixture was dried in a conventional oven for 15 minutes.
 The oven-dried mixture was ground into a powder in a blender. This crushed orange and avocado peel mixture served as the second biodegradable superabsorbent polymer and was stored in a mason jar for later experiments.

Hope this helps
Lakshita

[deleted-946958]

Hi Ms. Lakshita,

Thank you so much for the help! I can't stress this enough, but you are a very big help to us. I would like to ask, why did your procedure change from 9 avocados, 45ml of lemon juice, 300ml of distilled water to the present one which uses 19 oranges, 100ml of lemon juice, and 1000ml of distilled water?

We will be conducting the experiment tomorrow, thank you for this information. Also, goodluck with your SAP Project too! I hope you and Mr. Sybee are both safe! I hope you could respond to us again.

Thank you for your time,
Reynel

[deleted-946958]

Hi Ms. Lakshita,

I would also like to ask about the degree celsius of the conventional oven that you used for 15 minutes, and did you pre-heat it? I hope you could respond.

Thank you so much,
Reynel

[deleted-373171]

Hi Reynel,

Yes I pre-heated it and used at 350 (normal bake temperature)

Thanks,
Lakshita

[deleted-946958]

Hi Ms. Lakshita,

I must assume it is in degree Fahrenheit. Thank you so much for your help, you really did a big help in our project! I hope you'll stay safe and be successful in the project you are conducting, too!

Sincerely,
Reynel

[deleted-946958]

Hi Ms. Lakshita and Mr. Sybee,

I am sorry to bother you again but there came a problem while we are conducting the project. We somehow "overcooked" our orange peels and only got for now a 180ml of strained liquid. But, we are still straining it overnight so we expect to get atmost of 200ml. It was said in Ms. Lakshita's procedure that she will be adding 250ml of liquid in the mixture to be oven-dried. So, we assumed that we are supposed to strain about 250ml of the liquid from the mixture.
(1) Is it still okay if we are only able to get 180ml of liquid even though you were able to get 250ml of liquid?
(2) Will it affect the result of our project?
I hope you could help us, your help is very much needed.

Thank you so much,
Reynel

[deleted-975240]

Hey, Reynel
Did you able make orange peel/ avocado SAP

[deleted-373171]

Hi Reynel,

I guess that should be ok to use 200 ml of strained liquid.

Thanks,
Lakshita

[deleted-946958]

Hi Ms. Lakshita,

Thank you so much for the response, I hope both of our projects will be successful!

Hoping you are safe there,
Reynel

[deleted-946958]

Hi,

We are now starting to sun-dry our Orange and Avocado peels, we are yet to make an SAP product.

Reynel

[deleted-975240]

Hi, Reynel
Any Progress , how much time it will take to sun dry peels?

[deleted-946958]

Good day, Sir.

Our peels take 14 days to dry under the sun. We're on our 7th day today and we need to wait another 7 days for the peels to fully dry.

Reynel

[deleted-946958]

Good day, Sir.

Our peels take 14 days to dry under the sun. We're on our 7th day today and we need to wait another 7 days for the peels to fully dry.

Reynel

[SciB]

Hi Reynel,

Just thought I would check in with you so you know that I am following your thread.

So, your peels are drying. What is your time schedule like for when you need to do experiments, get the data and write up your report? You might want to start another batch of OAP-SAP now if you have time, just in case you need it later.

What is the goal of your project? Do you have a hypothesis that you are testing? I have emphasized the need for using statistical tests to Lakshita, and I would say the same to you. Statistical verification is at the heart of any scientific study, and you need to learn how to make these simple tests now. Self education has never been more important than now during the pandemic and there are many lectures and tutorials on youtube that you can watch to learn what you need to know on your own. And, when you have questions or want suggestions about your ideas, I will be here to help.

Find joy every day and stay curious,

Sybee

[deleted-975240]

Hi Reynel,
We are from India , due to hot temperature here, our peels were dried in 5-6 days, so we grind avocado/orange peels into fine powder, but they are not absorbing any water , the mixture just precipitate under water.
When you finished sun drying please upload some pictures ,
Thanks,
Prateek

[deleted-946958]

Hi Mr. Sybee,


Thank you for checking up on us and our progress!

This is our timeline for the Orange Avocado SAP.
January 24: We conducted the experiment of OA SAP
January 25: Start of Sun-drying process
February 7: End of Sun-drying
February 8: Oven-drying and Powderization of the OA SAP

This is our timeline for the Lemon Avocado SAP
January 28: We conducted the experiment of LA SAP
January 29: Start of Sun-drying process
February 11: End of Sun-drying
February 12: Oven-drying and Powderization of the LA SAP



Our study is about making an SAP instead of Orange, we will be using lemon because in our country, lemon can be planted even at the backyards of our home which makes it more accessible. And we do not want to use the same variables that Ms. Kiara used since we wouldn't be able to contribute much since it was done already.


The goal of our study is to make an SAP using Lemon and Avocado. We will be testing both powder’s (Lemon and Avocado peels which are directly powderize) and the SAP mixture’s (Lemon and Avocado peels, added with the strained liquid, oven-dried and powderized) absorbing ability with different water (river, tap, distilled, rain), the soil’s water retention, and the plant growth.

About our future plans and timeline:

February 5: Preparation of materials and essentials for conducting an experiment
February 10: Final conducting of the experiment (Lemon Avocado SAP)
February 11: Start of Sun-drying process
February 24: End of Sun-drying
February 25: Oven-drying and Powderization of the LA SAP
February 25: test the Sap’s Absorption ability, soil’s water retention, and plant’s growth for 21 days
March 3: 7th day Testing of soil’s water retention and plant’s growth
March 10: 14th day Testing of soil’s water retention and plant’s growth
March 17: 21st day of Testing and Gather results
March 18-20: If possible and we’re not busy, we will be writing the Results and Discussion

About our statistical tests:
Some of our process and testing methods will be based on Ms. Lakshita’s and Ms. Kiara’s and other papers that we have read related to the synthesis of OA SAP. We don’t have a lot of time to focus on our research since we have a lot of schoolworks and exam season is coming. I will be updating you on February 03 or February 06 about our statistical tests and if we have problems encountered during the experiment or writing our papers.

Thank you so much for looking out and helping us out. I hope you find happiness in the little things in life and safe there.
Here’s a little reminder from the book I’ve been reading,
“Every day may not be glorious, but there’s something glorious in every day. Find the glory!”

Thank you for your time,
Reynel

[deleted-946958]

Hi Prateek,

Okay, I'll be updating you once we finished sun-drying and get our results.

I hope both of our projects work out,
Reynel

[SciB]

Hi Reynel,

Thanks for the nice quotation--it mirrors how I like to feel about each day too. Sometimes its a struggle with everything going on, but there''s always bright spots if you look for them.

You have set up a pretty ambitious project and I wish you the best of luck in carrying it out. Be sure to include as many replicates and repeats as you can so that your statistical conclusions will be stronger. Scientists don't believe any results unless they are backed up by stat tests.

I would like you to come up with at least one different experiment to make your project uniquely yours--maybe you could think of some way to test the SAP that Lakshita did not do, just to extend the investigation into a new area. One thing I would like to see is a longer time course. Most crops take longer than 3 weeks to mature and a farmer wants to know that the SAP will go on working for the whole time. I know this would be hard for you because you don't have months of time to spend on the project, but maybe you could choose a different plant, like one that is a crop in your area, and try to grow it for longer than three weeks. It is good that you are testing lemons as the polymer source as that will provide new information. I hope the resulting SAP is as good as OAP--or even better!

Good luck,

Sybee

[deleted-946958]

Hi Mr. Sybee,

Thank you for responding and patiently explaining to us what should and should not be done.

Yes, we will have at least three trials and even more if we have enough SAP. We will make sure to make a lot in order to have enough SAP powder to use for our testing methods.

Thank you for suggesting ideas and recommending us for the betterment of our project. We will try to test the soil for 30 days which is equivalent to 1month. So our timeline will change to:

February 25: test the Sap’s Absorption ability, soil’s water retention, and plant’s growth for 21 days
March 3: 7th day Testing of soil’s water retention and plant’s growth
March 10: 14th day Testing of soil’s water retention and plant’s growth
March 17: 21st day of Testing
March 24: 28th day of Testing
March 26: 30th day of Testing and Gather results
March 27-31: Write the results and discussion and complete our write-ups for Chapter 2

I guess it will still be possible since we are given until the end of March to finish conducting and gather our results. We will try to brainstorm and think of a way to improve our project. We will also find a good plant where we can see the progress within a month and needed a lot of water and is used a lot in farming here in the Philippines. I'll be updating you once we have ideas and added improvements for our project. We will also start studying about the statistical tests needed for our testing methods and we'll get back to you if we have queries or to ask for suggestions and what should we improve in this project.

Thank you for helping us out. Here's another to quote to brighten up your day:
"Kindness, like boomerang, always return." I hope the kindness you've given to us will come back to you in many ways!

I hope you and your family are safe there, and I hope you always find happiness even during these hard times.

Thank you for your time,
Reynel

[deleted-946958]

Hi Mr. Sybee,

I want to update you that we thought of adding the Biodegradability test in our testing methods. This was the procedure that we saw in a paper related to the synthesis of SAP. The procedure goes like this:

Procedure:
 5g of the WAM were measured
 Poured into a transparent tin
 50 ml of water were poured in the tin
 The set up was left for a month. Any growth on the sample would indicate
biodegradability (Bellina et al.,2012).
The only problem here is that we don't know how will we identify and determine if there really is any growth on the sample that would indicate biodegradability since we are talking about Research here and I know the data won't be acceptable if we just assume that there is growth when we saw molds forming. We are not allowed to go and conduct in laboratories here where we mostly test our samples. We are only allowed to conduct tests feasible at home. What can you suggest, Mr. Sybee? I am hoping that you could respond to us.

Thank you for your time,
Reynel

[deleted-946958]

Hi Mr. Sybee,

I wonder why you haven’t replied yet. How are you doing these days? We are struggling a bit in writing our data analysis, we are confused on what testing method should we use among Mean, t-test, standard deviation, ANOVA, Kruskal- wallis, etc. I hope you could help us understand what, how, and when should we use these tests.

Thank you for your time,
Reynel

[SciB]

Hi Reynel,

Thanks for the quotations! I like the boomerang effect.

Good idea to do 30 days--longer would be better--but I know you don't have time.

The biodegradability test would be very good to do and ties in with the experiment showing plant growth over time. I don't see a good way to measure degradation, however. The purpose of the SAP is to retain water in the soil, so that is what needs to be tested. You could add three pots of soil plus SAP to the experiment, but put no plants in them. At weekly intervals, you could test the water retention capacity of the soil and compare it to the beginning value. Then you would know whether the SAP was still performing as it should over time.

For stat tests, I would do ANOVA followed by t test.

Good luck!

Sybee

[deleted-946958]

Hi Mr. Sybee,

Thank you for the fast reply! Yes, the soil moisture test is included in our testing methods. We also have a ph, moisture, and light meter here to test the soil with SAP and no SAP and 50ml of distilled water every week for 30 days. About the biodegradability test, we will ask our teacher what we should do and if we should still include it in our study. Also, I will also consult my cousin whose major is Biology and ask how to determine if there is growth in the SAP and if it is feasible at home. We will also be studying more about the Data analysis and Statistical tools to use, but maybe not right now, because it’s the week of our Exams. Thank you for helping us!

I hope you are doing good,
Reynel

[SciB]

Hi Reynel,

It looks like you have everything under control and progressing well. Concentrate on your exams now so you score high as I know you can.

I'll be here to help when you have questions.

Good luck,

Sybee

[deleted-975240]

Hey , Reynel
How was sun dried powder , could you also do water absorption experiment on sun dried powder not the one that you oven dried.
As my first experiment was failure , I want to start with second batch soon, Hoping for positive results
Thanks ,
Prateek

[deleted-946958]

Hi Mr. Sybee and Prateek,
How are you Mr. Sybee? We are having a hard time about the results on our SAP. Update on our Orange and Avocado SAP that we made. We oven-dried the mixture for 20 minutes in an oven pre-heated in 180 degree Celsius. Then, we blended it, but the powder didn’t quite turn out as what it is supposed to be. It looks just like the same as the SAP that we made weeks ago. It’s not turning into gel and the SAP doesn’t even absorb water. We didn’t know now what and where did we go wrong since we really followed the procedure as stated by Ms. Lakshita. We also conducted our final batch of Lemon SAP yesterday and the peels will be sun dried today. But we do not have a solution to how will we sun dry it since the batch 1 and 2 that we made last week gets moldy. We really don’t know why our SAP is not working. Can you help us Mr. Sybee?
These are the pictures of our powder, and the SAP when the distilled water was added. It’s more on brown-ish black color compared to Ms. Lakshita’s which is a bit white and orange-y.

[The extension docx has been deactivated and can no longer be displayed.]

I really hope you could help us,
Reynel

[SciB]

Hi Reynel,

I hope you are well. I don't know why your powder is not absorbing water. If you are doing all the steps correctly, then it should work. I do think that 180C may be too hot for drying the mix. I would try a lower temp, like 135C and leave it in longer until it is dry. As you said the color should be light, not dark.

Check all the steps again to make sure it was all correct and if you have a question about a step, let us know. Even a small deviation in some critical part might cause the polymer not to form correctly.

All the best,

Sybee