Help! Procedure in Making SAP Using Orange and Avocado.

[deleted-946958]

Hi Mr. Sybee,

How are you doing? I'm sorry my reply was late. We were a bit frustrated since we still don't know why our SAP is not yet working. We already checked the procedure and we've done and followed it already. The last and final batch that we made last Monday which was sundried 3 days ago got moldy too. We already covered it using a mosquito net hoping that it will prevent the moldings, but yesterday, molds were already formed in the Lemon SAP. We do not have any time to waste by now, and still, we don't know why our project is still not working.

The Orange SAP that we've tried and we've blended last Monday was also not working. I don't get why even our original SAP was still not working. What do you think Mr. Sybee? We really don't know what to do by now. Please, I hope you could help us.

I hope you are safe and well there,
Reynel

[SciB]

Hi Reynel,

You have some really hungry molds there! Since sun drying doesn't work for you, your only choice that I can see is oven drying--just don't make the oven too hot--no more than 120 C. That will be warm enough to keep fungi from growing on the peels but not so warm as to damage the polymers--I hope. It's an experiment. As lakshita said, there are no bad experiments--they always tell you something and it is important to report accurately what happened so maybe the next person who tries to make SAPs will be able to avoid the mold,

Let me know what you think. I like feedback and welcome new ideas. I'll always try to help.

Sybee

[deleted-946958]

Hi Mr. Sybee,

Are you doing well there? Here in the Philippines, there'll be days when it's so rainy, and there are days where it is super sunny. Almost like there's no in-between, so that kind of affected our project too.

I would like to update you that the timeline of our experimentation changed. We will try to change the sun-drying process from 14 to 2-4 days since by that time the peels were almost fully dried already. By that, it will give us more time to conduct our testing methods since we won't be waiting for 14 days every time we make and SAP.

Tomorrow, we are planning to conduct again just like what we've said in Ms. Lakshita's topic. We will be narrowing down the materials first so less will be wasted. By the time that our SAP is finally successful, that's when we will be making big batches for our testing methods. We are trying to conduct now also because the cases of COVID-19 here in our town started to rise so it is making it hard for us to find resources and materials for our study.

I would also like to ask, it was stated in a study about making an SAP too that, The natural oils from avocado peels were used to prevent clogging when water is poured into the SAP. But, we've noticed in our final product that it was kind of clogging since the powder couldn't absorb any water and form into a gel. What do you think might cause it, Mr. Sybee?

Also, we might be trying to conduct another SAP using sweet potato peels but we are quite not sure how fermentation works and gelatinization.

Here is the paper, you might want to check it out since this is the procedure that we will be following:

KYAZIKE-CAES-BAGE.pdf

(1.69 MiB) Downloaded 418 times

I hope you are doing well there Mr. Sybee, I really hope our SAP will finally work since we've all been through a lot. I just hope this will work so we can proceed to conducting our testing methods, by then, we will also be writing our papers. I've also heard that it's snowing there in your country. I would also like to witness one, but sadly, there's no snow here in the Philippines. I'm so glad you get to experience that.

Let's be kind and carry on,
Reynel

[deleted-946958]

Hi Mr. Sybee,

Thank you for the advice! We will be trying to oven-dry the peels after it was boiled and strained overnight. We will oven-dry it in 50-60 degree celsius for 10 minutes. We will observe if it dries the lemon peels just so there will be no moisture and no molds will be formed. Then we'll proceed to sun-drying it for 1-3 days.
We will also gonna try to oven-dry both lemon and and avocado in 50-60 degree celsius for 10 minutes too and proceed to sun dry both of them again for 1-3 days. Since we are not quite sure that the cross-linking happens during sundrying, I guess it is best to oven dry the peels at first but proceed to sundrying it.

We are still thinking of different ideas that we can use to perform the experiment. It is quite hard here today since it is a bit strict because of COVID 19. I hope this works well. Thank you for the help!

All the best,
Reynel

[SciB]

Hi Reynel,

Sorry to hear that the virus has been active again in your town. In the U.S., the number of cases has decreased but we are all worried about the mutant strains that are more infectious because the vaccine might not work as well on them. We haven't got the vaccine yet, but maybe by the end of this month.

I wish I knew what to suggest to help you, but it sounds like you are working it out as well as anyone could. I just hope your next batch of SAP holds water. I took a look at the dissertation you uploaded and there's a lot of good information there. It is nice to see that others are taking this water problem seriously and trying to improve the yield of crops on poor soil to help people grow enough food.

I grow a big garden here every year but the season is so short--really only three months--that we have to start things indoors at the right time so they are ready to plant out by the end of May. Things grow fast in the summer and I am always busy canning and freezing vegies, and I give away a lot to the food bank for distribution to anyone who needs food. I use a lot of hay and manure and compost and no chemical fertilizers or pesticides so the crops are organic. The compost I add to the soil increases its water-holding capacity naturally and I don't need SAPs. I do like avocados and oranges, however, and the peels go into the compost pile, so maybe I am making SAP in the compost naturally .

I wish you all the best of luck and I know you will succeed. I'm glad that we are all able to help one another even though we are separated by so many miles. If each person in the world helped one other, and they helped another, and they helped another... and so on, eventually the entire world would be working together and we would all be one happy human family, as it should be.

Happy days,
Sybee

[deleted-946958]

Hi Mr. Sybee,

Thank you so much for encouraging us and giving us a little push. Yeah, I agree, I hope we can all help each other and realize that helping someone go up won't bring us down. I'm glad to hear that there are chances you'll be having your vaccine by the end of this month. I hope the vaccine will also work for the new variant/strain of virus.

Here in the Philippines we have a lot of farmers and agricultural land and irrigation system is quite a problem here since it is expensive so I hope our study will be helpful to the agricultural community.

I would like to ask Mr. Sybee if you know what is meant by fermentation since if we're gonna try using Sweet potato peels we will be fermenting it instead of boiling. We don't know yet the exact process and what it means. I also don't know about gelatinization. I hope you could help us about this.
This is a process included in the dissertation I sent.

Thank you for your time,
Reynel

[deleted-373171]

Hi Reynel,
Hope you are doing well! I will answer your questions in your topic. The reason that I added the lemon juice was because it lowers the pH of the mixture and neutralizes the negative charges on the polysaccharide strands of pectin, so they could assemble into a network and form a gel. It's good to know you have many plans in place to get a SAP--I'm sure you will. My best wishes for your project to succeed
To answer your questions:
1. I sundried my peels (avocado and orange) for 7-10 days. Of course, that depends on how much sun and heat your area is getting. Missouri and your region are probably way different.
2. I dried my orange and avocado peels together, but I don't think it matters. And especially since you are getting mold on your peels, I would try to dry them separately and see what happens.
3. The inside of my avocadoes were green and the outside skin was violet so...yeah.
Let me know if you have any other questions Take care!

Stay safe and warm,
Lakshita

[SciB]

Hi Reynel,

In answer to your questions, fermentation is a bacterial process that occurs under specific conditions and with specific microbes so it is hard to give a general description. As long as you follow the procedure in the thesis about sweet potatoes you can be confident that it will work. You could try searching 'sweet potato fermentation' and see what you get. When you do the experiment, try to get organic sweet potatoes that have not been sprayed or treated in any way as this could inhibit fermentation.

Gelatinization (I would simply call it 'gelling') is a physical-chemical process in which a polymer forms a cross-linked structure at the molecular level. This makes the mixture 'set up' as with gelatin in Jello or starch in pudding. The gel is the polymer matrix that absorbs the water--something like a porous sponge that swells up. That is what you are trying to make with the pectin and oils from the avocado peels.

I hope you have good success this time. Don't be discouraged. This is how science progresses--as a systematic series of trials and tests until the correct set of conditions is found and BINGO! It works! That's a happy moment, that makes up for the frustration in getting to that point.

We are one...

Sybee

[deleted-946958]

Hi Ms. Lakshita,

Thank you so much for answering our questions. I'm sorry it took too long for us to reply, but we are grateful for your help. Thank you also for explaining to us the purpose of soaking the peels in lemon juice.
We will be trying different experiments and processes and we'll get back to you once we have the results.
I hope this finally works so we can proceed to our final experiment and testing methods.

I hope you find something good in every day,
Reynel

Hi Mr. Sybee,
We conducted an experiment yesterday using Lemon peels, with the same procedure but will be sun dried for 3-4 days while the other one is not soaked in lemon juice and the strained liquid wont be used so we won't oven dry it.
But, our avocado is not ripe yet so we choose to use the over ripe avocados that can't be eaten just so the resources won't be wasted. The avocado may affect the results but I hope this works. We are still going to conduct a new experiment once the other avocados are ripe.

About the fermentation of sweet potato peels, it was not stated how did the fermentation goes. It was only stated to ferment the peels so now we are still trying to find the right way of fermenting the peels.

While the gelatinization process or as you said "gelling", I think its a bit different from the gelling of the SAP to what is stated in the dissertation.
It says that the sundried sweet potato peels were milled then the powder underwent gelatinization process.
The gel was dried on metal pans into a film.
The gel film was ground to fine particles using a milling machine.
The fine particles were sieved to particle size 250μm. These fine particles are what was termed as the water absorbent materials.

We are guessing that to gelatinize the powder, we will be adding water and wait or stir until it thickens and dry it on metals pans into film just as stated above. But we are quite not sure about this that's why we can't really perform the Sweet Potato SAP. What are your thoughts about his, Mr. Sybee?

Thank you so much for constantly checking up on us,
Reynel

[SciB]

Hi Reynel,

Thanks for updating me on the progress of your SAP project. I'm glad Lakshita mentioned the importance of using the lemon juice as the acidity should help to inhibit mold growth as well as promote polymerization.

I think the the overripe avocados will do fine as long as the skins are not moldy. How much of the flesh do you leave on when you peel them? I don't know if this matters, but there is a lot of oil in the flesh and Lakshita said the oil is needed for the orange peel pectin to polymerize properly. Are you writing down all the steps that you perform in detail? That's important when working with complex systems like this with a lot of variables.

Fermentation can be done by naturally occurring yeasts, but molds would not be welcome. Did you do a search for sweet potato fermentation?

What is the difference between gelatinization and gelling? I thought they were the same--molecular crosslinks form between polymer or protein strands to hold them together in a matrix that will absorb water. The process as you described it sounds complicated and not totally clear, so be sure to keep track of all the steps and try to just change one thing at a time.

Good luck and keep us posted on your progress.

Stay safe,

Sybee

[deleted-946958]

Hi Mr. Sybee,

About the avocados, as much as possible we try to remove all the flesh since we thought it might cause the formation of molds also, but now, we will try to leave some flesh on the peels to see the difference.

Regarding about the fermentation of the sweet potato peels, we saw a process wherein it soaks the peels in the water for three days in a jar. But, after three days, and once we got the peels out, it has a very foul smell that we couldn't take. Thus, we were quite unsure if it really is the right process of fermentation.

We haven't really seen a definite process on gelatinization or "gelling". I guess it really is the same thing. But there are no exact process included on how to gelatinize the powder.
According to the paper, this is how the process goes:

1. Sweet potato and irish potato peels were fermented (Adegunloye and Oparinde,2017)and orange peels boiling for softening.
2. 3kg of each of the peels were mixed with 1kg of avocado peels
3. The peels were dried and milled to particle size 250μm. The orange peel based WAM was obtained at this step.
4. The other three underwent gelatinization where after the gel was dried to
films which were milled to particle size 250μm and hence WAMs formed.

We are really confused about the process of the Sweet Potato. We will learn about the process of it later because we have a lot of school works left. We will update you Mr. Sybee once we have different information regarding this. We will be studying and dedicating our time this evening for Research.

I hope you are doing well and warm there,
Reynel

[SciB]

Hi Reynel,

I hope you are staying cool where you are--and safe, of course. The temp here is supposed to go back down to -15C tomorrow which means all the rain we had today is gonna freeze and make driving risky, so I think we'll stay home.

The sweet potato fermentation sounds tricky. You really should have a starter culture of whatever microbes are needed to do the fermentation properly. It might smell yeasty, but it shouldn't be foul. Did you find out any more about the procedure online? Let me know when you have questions and i can try to explain.

If you do a search on google scholar, try to find papers that are published in open access journals. It is so frustrating to find a good paper, only to be told that you have to pay $39 to read it!

Study hard for your exams so you do really well. Your future depends on the foundation that you are preparing right now, as I tell
Lakshita, and it is worth every effort that you can put into it. I'm here to help, so just send me a message and I'll get back to you.

Best wishes,

Sybee

[deleted-946958]

Hi Mr. Sybee,

Thank you for the advice and encouraging us! We have another bad news, the SAP that we made last February 14, using Lemon peels and Overripe Avocados, failed. The results are just the same, the powder did not form into a gel as what it was supposed to be. In this experiment we used two procedures, Ms. Lakshita’s and the other is from the dissertation I sent.
Sample 1 from Ms. Lakshita:
1. We soaked the peels in lemon juice for 2 hours
2. Boiled it and was able to strain 40 ml of liquid
3. Strained liquid was stored in a jar in the refrigerator
4. Over ripe avocado was added (no flesh, just peels) and sun dried together for 5 days
6. The 40 ml strained liquid was added to the peels
7. Oven dried for 100 degree celsius for about 50 minutes. (This took too long because the peels won’t dry) (The peels also turned black and looked burnt.
8. Blended but not really fine enough.

When we tested it, the powder just remained the same. Just like our other experiments, it turned out the same. While the other sample, the one which uses the procedure from another dissertation.
Sample 2 from another dissertation:
1. Boiled the lemon peels
2. Strained the liquid
3. And discarded it
4. Over ripe avocado was added (no flesh, just peels) and sun dried together for 5 days
8. Blended but not really fine enough.
The results are also the same. It did not turn into a gel.

But, here’s our other guess. This might be due to what you’ve said that we didn’t have the flesh of avocados and just used peels. This might be why our SA clogs and does not absorb because there are no oils since we just used peels only. We conducted another Lemon SAP last February 16 and Sundried it Last February 17. It will end Tomorrow and we will be able to test it by February 22 if it works since in that Experiment we added a bit of flesh as what you’ve said. We are expecting that by February 22, the Experiment 2 that we conducted will be successful. And if it does, We will be conducting big batches of SAP at night. So that by February 28, we will be able to have enough amount of SAP for our different testing methods. And, by March 1 we will start planting.

If the experiment doesn’t work well, we no longer know what really is the problem with our SAP. We are guessing that it really is the oil from the flesh since our past experiments we just used peels. And the last experiment that we conducted using orange peels and avocado peels with no flesh also did not work. SO that is our guess by now that the problem really is because there is no flesh of avocado that can be a source of natural oils. We are a month behind our timeline now and there have been big changes in our future plans. But we are really hoping that all our efforts will be paid off soon and our future experiments will be successful.

This is the file of the pictures of our results:

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

Can I ask Mr. Sybee what are your thoughts in our experiment and any other reasons why it didn’t work out well? I hope you could respond to us. We are working well and finding different reasons why it don’t work and other reasons to save our SAP.

Thank you for your time,
Reynel

[deleted-946958]

Hi Mr. Sybee,

How are you doing? I have another question, we are having a hard time calibrating our Salinity meter. For our testing methods number 1 where we're going to test the absorption capacity of SAP with different sources of water, we will be needing to test their salt content since it affects the absorption capacity. But, we are having a hard time finding the right solution to calibrate our Salinity Meter. We are using a salinity meter (check the file for the picture of the salinity meter and its manual).
It says we need to have a solution, we saw on other videos that they are using a EC1413 solution which is 1.4 ppt. But, our salinity meter doesn't come with a solution and we don't have any idea where to get that. We are trying to find how to make a diy salinity calibrating solution but haven't been able to find a good alternative yet. I heard that Ms. Lakshita also used a Salinity meter for her experiment, can I ask how did she calibrated hers? We try as much as possible not to post anything in her topic so that she won't be confused with her topic and keep it organized. If you could ask her for us we would appreciate it. Or if you know how we could calibrate our salinity meter, it would be a big help to us. Thank you Mr. Sybee for always being there to help us. We feel a little less lost now that we have someone that guides us from time to time. Thank you!

Picture of our Salinity Meter and its manual:

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

Wishing you all the best,
Reynel

[SciB]

Hi Reynel,

I hope you are well this morning (GMT -5).

We are always here and our goal is to help you feel "less lost"!

I read the instructions of your salinity meter and they have you doing the calibration with a solution of 35 parts per thousand, which is the same as 3.5 parts per hundred, which is the same as 3.5%, which just happens to be the salinity of sea water--which is why they chose that for calibration, I think.

If you are near the ocean, which in the Philippines is probably the case, you can use sea water to test the meter, but the salinity of sea water can vary depending on its location relative to any nearby sources of fresh water, like a river, so I would suggest that you make the saline test solution. If you do have sea water, then you can test it after you have calibrated the meter to see how close it is.

A 35 ppt solution of NaCl is made by dissolving 35 g of table salt in 1 liter of distilled water (DW). In case you didn't know, one gram weighs about the same as one milliliter of water, so you can assume they are equivalent. 35 g of NaCl per 1000 mL of DW is the same as 35 ppt. Dissolve the salt in DW that is about 20C and measure the salinity after zeroing the meter with DW as instructed. If the reading is not 35, then adjust the calibration trimmer until the meter reads 35. That's all there is to it.

Good luck and let me know if this works OK.

Sybee

[deleted-946958]

Hi Mr. Sybee,

Thank you for the advice and encouraging us! We have another bad news, the SAP that we made last February 14, using Lemon peels and Overripe Avocados, failed. The results are just the same, the powder did not form into a gel as what it was supposed to be. In this experiment we used two procedures, Ms. Lakshita’s and the other is from the dissertation I sent.
Sample 1 from Ms. Lakshita:
1. We soaked the peels in lemon juice for 2 hours
2. Boiled it and was able to strain 40 ml of liquid
3. Strained liquid was stored in a jar in the refrigerator
4. Over ripe avocado was added (no flesh, just peels) and sun dried together for 5 days
6. The 40 ml strained liquid was added to the peels
7. Oven dried for 100 degree celsius for about 50 minutes. (This took too long because the peels won’t dry) (The peels also turned black and looked burnt.
8. Blended but not really fine enough.

When we tested it, the powder just remained the same. Just like our other experiments, it turned out the same. While the other sample, the one which uses the procedure from another dissertation.
Sample 2 from another dissertation:
1. Boiled the lemon peels
2. Strained the liquid
3. And discarded it
4. Over ripe avocado was added (no flesh, just peels) and sun dried together for 5 days
8. Blended but not really fine enough.
The results are also the same. It did not turn into a gel.

But, here’s our other guess. This might be due to what you’ve said that we didn’t have the flesh of avocados and just used peels. This might be why our SA clogs and does not absorb because there are no oils since we just used peels only. We conducted another Lemon SAP last February 16 and Sundried it Last February 17. It will end Tomorrow and we will be able to test it by February 22 if it works since in that Experiment we added a bit of flesh as what you’ve said. We are expecting that by February 22, the Experiment 2 that we conducted will be successful. And if it does, We will be conducting big batches of SAP at night. So that by February 28, we will be able to have enough amount of SAP for our different testing methods. And, by March 1 we will start planting.

If the experiment doesn’t work well, we no longer know what really is the problem with our SAP. We are guessing that it really is the oil from the flesh since our past experiments we just used peels. And the last experiment that we conducted using orange peels and avocado peels with no flesh also did not work. SO that is our guess by now that the problem really is because there is no flesh of avocado that can be a source of natural oils. We are a month behind our timeline now and there have been big changes in our future plans. But we are really hoping that all our efforts will be paid off soon and our future experiments will be successful.

This is the file of the pictures of our results:

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

Can I ask Mr. Sybee what are your thoughts in our experiment and any other reasons why it didn’t work out well? I hope you could respond to us. We are working well and finding different reasons why it don’t work and other reasons to save our SAP.

Thank you for your time,
Reynel

[SciB]

Hi Reynel,

I wish I could come up with the answer that would solve your problem, and maybe adding more of the avocado flesh will do it. I can't think of what else to try at this point.

According to my understanding of the SAP process, the polymer pectin forms the backbone of the SAP and is cross-linked through the action of the avocado oils and the acid of the lemon. So, I did a search for fruits with pectin and grapefruit has the most--even more than orange. Here's a link to the info: https://healthyeating.sfgate.com/make-f ... 11180.html

Now, the pectin is located in the membranes surrounding the sections, but also in the white pith that lines the inside of the rind. So, I am thinking, maybe you peeled the oranges or lemons too closely and left most of the pith. Is that what you might have done?

If you have time, you could get grapefruits and use mostly the pith together with some of the avocado flesh and less of the peel. I certainly can't guarantee that this will work, but I would try it as a best guess for how to make a SAP that holds water.

What do you think?

Good luck,

Sybee

[deleted-946958]

Hi Mr. Sybee,

About the grapefruit, I guess we won't be able to try that one since we don't really know where we could get that as of now. And, it is quite uncommon here in our town. Even Avocados has been hard to find lately since we need to go to the City or the other Town just to buy that since no one really sells Avocado as of now in our town. We can't do further experiments as of now because of lack of resources but we are finding ways so we can conduct again tomorrow once we know the results of the Second Batch of the experiment we conducted last February 16.

About the pectin, in our past experiments we used to squeeze the lemon to obtain lemon juice. After that we just cut the peels into small pieces and boil it right away. The peels include a bit of pulp that was left after squeezing the lemon, the pith which is the white part, and the peels itself. But we noticed that the pulps made the peels stick together which causes the moisture in the peels because they were not spread properly that resulted to molds in the peels. But, when we tried to remove the pulp and include just the pith and the skin/peel, there were no molds seen in our last experiment in February 15.

Pictures:

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

We also tried not to include the pulps of the lemon and used just the pith and skin in our second experiment which is from February 16. In this experiment, the procedure goes like this:
1. We removed the pulps but included pith and skin of lemon. We finely cut it and soaked the lemon peels for 2 hours.
2. We boiled it and was able to strain 40ml of liquid.
3. We strain it overnight
4. We added the avocados with some flesh and sundried them together for 5 days
The sun drying process will end today and we will oven dry it and blend it later this evening. Tonight, we will check and test the powder.

I hope this experiment turns out fine so we could proceed and conduct big batches of Lemon Avocado Powder and Mixture and conduct our testing methods. We only have a month left, so as much as possible we need to plant lettuce or Okra/Lady finger and test it for 30days. I hope our teacher will let us extend the deadline for our data gathering.

About our paper, I made an outline/format in our logbook so that when we conduct the testing methods, we will just input the data that we gathered after testing. I also made another one using Google Sheets just so we have back up data since we might need to pass the logbook. I am also trying to study about using the SPSS for our statistics, when and how to used SD, ANOVA, t-test, and many more. It is quite hectic as of now since I am trying to balance my other subject and doing research.

As of now, we don't have definite timeline since our future plans will depend on the results of the experiment tonight. If this will work, by tomorrow, we will be conducting our final experiment if we can find Avocados too. After that, we will be able to have our SAP by February 28. And by March 1 we can proceed to our testing methods which included testing the Absorption Capacity, Water Retention of Soil, and Plant Growth.

We are still stressed about our Research as of now since we don't have a lot of time. I hope this works out well. Thank you so much for the continuous support, Mr. Sybee! I hope this will be successful so all of our efforts (both ours and yours) will pay off. I hope you are doing good there!

Stay safe and healthy,
Reynel

[SciB]

Hi Reynel,

I am really impressed with your persistence and ingenuity in overcoming all the obstacles to success in this project. I think it will work this time.

If the polymer still does not absorb water as it should then I think you should still proceed with the water retention and plant growth expts because I am betting that adding the lemoncado powder to soil will improve its water-holding properties and plants will grow better.

Over the centuries, farmers have always added organic matter to their soil to improve what is called 'tilth' the texture of the soil that forms by addition of lots of compost. It is not a SAP but it does make the soil hold water better, and it contains the elements that plants need--N, P and K--along with the equally important trace elements like boron, magnesium, calcium, etc.

So, even if your polymer is not 'super' absorbent, it will improve the soil and that is a desirable thing for a farmer. Using waste biomass that a farmer may be able to get for just the effort of collecting it and hauling it to his farm may well be worth it for a better crop.

Good luck with your other courses. I remember how hard it was keeping up with math, English, civics, biology, history, etc., etc. You are a diligent student, I know, so you will do well and learn well. Use the web for self-education. That is what I always tell Lakshita. There's no need to wait for a teacher to get around to instructing you in a subject that interests you. Just go to youtube and you can find a lecture on any subject that costs you nothing. Lifelong learning is the goal. Do that and you will always be happy and never bored.

All the best,
Sybee

[deleted-946958]

Hi Mr. Sybee,

Sadly, the last batch that we conducted didn't work too. It all turned out the same. But, we will have our one last experiment once we find avocados.
We will have different plans if this don't turn out as what we wanted it to be.
Plan A: Lemon Avocado SAP (Powder and Mixture)
Plan B: Orange Avocado SAP (Powder and Mixture)
Plan C: Add gelatin to the Powder since it may help in gelling.
Plan D: Add a bit of SAP from diapers to the Powder (But we are having a bit of hard time separating the SAP in the diaper from the cotton)

I hope Plan A or Plan B works out and if not we are left with no choice but to add Gelatin or SAP or tweak our papers and its purpose.
The process that we are going to use in our last and final experiment will be Ms. Lakshita's
We will use 19 lemons and 19 oranges, and 9 avocados each for lemon experiment and orange experiment.
We will try to find oranges that have thick pith as shown in the picture below since oranges here in our town is different from those hat are used by Ms. Kiara Nirghin.
And, we will try to include the Pulp of the lemon along with the peels/skin and pith since pectin might be found there too.
We will try to include many flesh in the avocados as much as possible.
We will still soak the peels in lemon juice for 2 hours, and boil it.
We will strain the liquid and store it in the refrigerator.
We will combine the avocado peels with lots of flesh with orange and lemon and sundry it for about 5 days.
Then, we will add the strained liquid and oven dry it in 130 degree celsius for about 20-25 minutes.
Then we will blend the powder.

Pictures:

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

We will then be testing the powder and if both of the experiments work, we will still be using the Lemon Avocado SAP. But, if only the Orange Avocado works, we will be using that. And, if both unfortunately don't work, we will be adding gelatin or SAP or just proceed to Soil Moisture and Average Plant growth and remove the Absorption Capacity of the SAP in our testing methods.
Thank you so much Mr. Sybee for helping us out and suggesting ideas. I am also studying about the Data Analysis while using Ms. Lakshita's data first just to get a hang of what are the data that we need and how are we going to use it. After that, if we have gathered the data from our testing methods, I will just paste our own data so that we will have less work in the future. But now since I have a bit of free time, I'll prepare for our future experiments and papers so that our work will go smoothly. Thank you Mr. Sybee! I hope you can help us too with our Data Analysis since its a bit of the same with Ms. Lakshita.

This is our last chance and I hope this will finally turns out well. Fingers crossed for this. I hope you are doing good there and I hope you know that all your help is well appreciated.

Wishing you all the best,
Reynel

[deleted-946958]

Hi Mr. Sybee,

I'm glad to share that we were able to find Avocados today. We spent all the day looking for Avocados, Lemons, and Oranges in the City and fortunately we were able to find some. Tomorrow we are scheduled to conduct two batches. One is Lemon Avocado SAP and the other is Orange Avocado SAP.

Our plan for the Lemon is to just use Ms. Lakshita's Procedure


The peels were removed from 19 lemons including as much pith as possible and finely cut. (Do you recommend adding the pulps or not?)
• 100 ml of organic lemon juice, measured using a graduated beaker, was added to the lemon peels and left for 2 hours.
 1000 ml of distilled water, measured using a graduated beaker, was added to the finely cut lemon 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 and left a lot of flesh, finely cut, and added to the cooked lemon peels.
 The lemon and avocado peel mixture was sun-driedoutdoors until the peels were fully dried (about 4-5 days depending on the weather). 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 in 130 degree celsius.
 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.

The process will still be the same with the Orange but unlike Ms. Lakshita, we will be using just 13 oranges since the ones we bought are big and it also has thick peels and pith.

This will be our last experiment and our future plans will depend on this. Just like what we've said on the last post our plans will be like this.

Plan A: Lemon Avocado SAP (Powder and Mixture)
Plan B: Orange Avocado SAP (Powder and Mixture)
Plan C: Add gelatin to the Powder since it may help in gelling.
Plan D: Add a bit of SAP from diapers to the Powder (But we are having a bit of hard time separating the SAP in the diaper from the cotton)
Plan E: We will remove the Water Absorption Capacity of SAP in our Testing methods and we will proceed in measuring the Soil Moisture and Average Plant Growth with the Powder that will somehow act as a "fertilizer".

We are still hoping that this will work so that we will be able to achieve our primary goal and be able to feel accomplished with our Research. Thank you so much Mr. Sybee. I hope you can read through our process for tomorrow so you can suggest and check what are the things we might need to change before we conduct so that we can improve the chances of the SAP be successful.

That's all we have for now.

I hope you and your family are doing good, stay safe and have fun!
Wishing you happiness,
Reynel

[SciB]

Hi Reynel,

Thanks for the good wishes. I hope everything is well with you and your family, also. Stay safe!

I read over your procedures and I don't see anything that you could do differently. As for adding lemon pulp, I would use the pith but not so much pulp as that seems to allow molds to grow. I would definitely NOT add gelatin or diaper SAP as this is not scientific. Just go with what you have and report the facts of your experiments and attempt to explain what happened. As I suggested, it is still important and useful to a farmer to add organic matter to their soil even if it is not SAP.

If your mixture does not polymerize, it may be that fungi are interfering and some way would have to be found to inhibit the molds. Fungi are usually beneficial in the soil as they help to break down organic matter and turn it into a form that plants an absorb as nutrients. But if the fungus can also digest pectin, then your polymer will have no chance of survival. I don't know if this is true and you would have to do further expts to prove or disprove it, but that is what science is about.

Good luck!

Sybee

[deleted-946958]

Hi Mr. Sybee,

Thank you for your advice! Update about our experiment today, we finished conducting the Lemon and Orange SAP today and both are being strained overnight. We decided to put it in separate containers first where all the peels are spread well so that they don't stick and won't cause molds again. Hopefully it does not. About the pulps, we received your message after we've conducted the experiment so we included it already but we'll try to remove it from the peels tomorrow and separate while we are using gloves since it might cause molds because that's what keeps the peels sticking together. About the Avocado, we will try to include as much flesh as possible and include them together with the peels tomorrow. We are also trying to find some container with small holes in them so that the peels can "breathe" and all of them will be equally dried since the peels at the bottom can "breathe" too. (I can't find the right term but I hope you get what I mean)

Also, I talked to my cousin earlier whose in College and her course is Microbiology, she told us that another reason why our product is not working because of the fruits, since we just bought it into the market, it is most likely to have pesticides, and we've seen from Ms. Lakshita's procedure that it needs to be organic. If this still won't work, it might be because of that too. But, we can't find any solutions for that since we don't have any sources of Avocado/Orange/Lemon here but just the Market and we can't make sure if those are organic or not. Do you think this really might be the cause?

I have my fingers crossed that this experiment will be successful. I really hope it does. Thank you so much Mr. Sybee!

Sincerely,
Reynel

[SciB]

You are welcome, Reynel. I am happy to help you make progress in your science project.

I understand what you mean about providing better air circulation so the peels can dry faster to avoid molds. You could have a small fan blowing air over them also to speed up the process, but that should not be necessary. We don't want to make the production any harder for the farmers than necessary.

You are right that Lakshita used organic produce that presumably has no chemical residues, but I do not think that pesticides or fungicides would inhibit the chemical reaction that turns pectin into a SAP. The mycelium of a mold, however, makes digestive enzymes that can decompose polymers and this could be the source of your problem. You might need to lower the pH even more by adding more lemon juice. Did you measure the pH of your peel mixture? That's another piece of data that you should collect. You should also be recording the temperature a couple times a day and also noting whether it is cloudy or sunny, raining or clear. Try to get a digital thermometer that also reads relative humidity as %RH is an important factor in how quickly your peels dry.

I'm hoping for the best, too, but always have a plan b--and probably c and d!

Good luck!

Sybee

[deleted-946958]

Hi Mr. Sybee,

I am glad you get what I meant! You replied so fast today, what time is it right now there? Here in the Philippines, it's 10:30pm. We noticed that you often reply whenever its night time in the Philippines so we always make sure to check it early in the morning if you have replied.

I agree too that using fan to dry the peels will make the procedure a bit more complicated since it requires energy and not all farmers really have an access to portable fans. We are sundrying our peels outdoors so there's wind that can help our peels airdry instead of using an electric fan. We will be covering our container with a mosquito net too to keep the flies away since it may also cause molds.

I really hope that the pesticides won't affect our peels too. We are doingthe best that we can to keep the molds away since it is the main culprit as of now to why our SAP is not working.

About the pH of the peels, we are contemplating earlier while we are conducting whether we should add lemon juice or not since it looks like it is not enough for the amount of peels that we used. But, we decided not to add since we followed Ms. Lakshita's procedure. We are a bit hesitant when it comes to changing procedure because we don't really know how will it affect our experiment and will it help improve our SAP or not. We just used 100ml of lemon juice for 1335grams of lemon peels and soaked it for 2 hours just like what Ms. Lakshita did. We tried to follow all the procedure as much as we can because it is already proven to be effective just like Ms. Lashita's and Ms. Kiara Nirghin's experiment. Do you think we should've add more lemon juice?
We weren't also able to measure the pH of our peels since we don't have any equipment to use for measuring it. But, we have a soil moisture meter here that have an option for testing the pH, the sunlight, and the moisture but we are not quite sure if we can use it since it is originally made to test the soil and maybe not for mixture. Can we still use it?

We have a thermometer here for oven/baking but we also don't have thermometer for testing the temperature in general. Can we use the same thermometer for baking? It is a digital one, and we have one that is analog.
But we will make sure to record the weather whether it is sunny or cloudy. We will also be doing that when we are testing the Plant growth even though the plants will still be stored in a greenhouse.

About the digital hygrometer and thermometer, I've been wanting to buy that too for my camera but didn't got the chance to buy one since we don't have a place that sells those. We can still order it online but we are not sure if it can arrive before we need to use it.
Can I ask if when and where will we be using those so that we can check if the item can arrive in the right time?

Thank you Mr. Sybee for the help! I am glad that we have someone we can ask our queries since we really don't have one here. I hope you can respond to our questions and we are glad to accept if you have any suggestions and ideas to how we can improve our Project. Thank you! Stay safe there.
Also, did you have your vaccine already? I remember you told us it'll be (possibly) by the end of February. I am glad your country is slowly progressing and moving forward despite the pandemic. I hope ours too!

All the best,
Reynel

[deleted-946958]

Hi Mr. Sybee,

Update on our experiment: Today is the first day of sun drying process. We sundried the peels outdoors, and since we conducted big batches of SAP, we can't find a container big enough that could fit all the peels (lemon, and oranges separately) all together with the avocados. So we decided to put it in small different containers. We made sure to put relatively same amounts of avocado and lemon/orange in each container. If we have small container, we made sure to put smaller amounts and bugger amounts on bigger containers. This is to prevent them from sticking together and giving them enough space to dry and prevent molds. We also did not cover the containers in mosquito nets since some containers are too low that the peels will touch the mosquito net already.
But, this time, we stirred each mixtures from time to time. We'll be doing it again tomorrow every 9:00am, 12:30pm and 2:30pm for the peels to be equaly sundried and so that the bottom of the peels won't stick to the container.

About the Avocado peels, we made sure to include a lot of flesh, as you said.

As of now, the peels looks better than what it was last time. I think that stirring then and keeping an eye on them helped in preventing molds. Do you think its okay to sundry them in separate containers just like what we did? This won't cause another failure of our SAP right?

About the temperature and weather everyday, we will be checking it using an app or in google. Though this might not be as accurate as using a thermometer, do you think we can still use this?

Are there by problems about our procedure, and do we to change something about it? Thats the only update I have for now Mr. Sybee.

I hope you still have time to help us, and I hope you know that all your efforts are well appreciated. I hope you're doing well there.

Keep safe and have fun,
Reynel

[SciB]

Hi Reynel,

My time is GMT -5, so we are 13 hr apart! When it is morning and 7 am here it is evening and 8 pm where you are—so when I talk to you, I am communicating with a being from the future—wow! Time travel really does exist, except that I can’t physically get to where you are instantly, like these electrons do.

I will try to answer all your questions and verify your procedures.

• Good idea to use mosquito netting to keep flies away from the peels as fly feet carry mold spores.

• I was speculating about the pH. I don’t know if you need to lower the pH, but it is something to consider because chemical reactions are affected by pH as well as temperature. The easiest way to measure the pH of the peel mixture would be to use pH test strips. Pet stores and garden supply stores have them or you can order them online. I don’t think you can use the soil pH meter with the peel mixture, but you can try it once you get pH paper to compare the readings to.

• You are right to be careful about changing the independent variables in your experiments. It is better to follow exactly what Lakshita did and write down in detail what you observe happening. Don’t add or change anything until you see what happens when you follow her procedure exactly.

• You can use your digital oven thermometer for measuring temperature as long as it is accurate. You can assume that it is accurate, but it would be better if you had another thermometer to compare it to. You do not have to measure temperature or relative humidity, but sometimes it would be useful to know them when an experiment does not work as expected because they are also independent variables in your case. That is why scientists usually control temperature in an experiment. If you decide to buy another thermometer for general measurements, try to get one that also measures humidity.

• We are on the waiting list for the vaccine so hopefully in a couple more weeks, we will get it.

Good luck with the experiments and best wishes to you and your family for staying safe and happy.

Sybee

[deleted-946958]

Hi Mr. Sybee,

I guess you haven't read our last post, so I'll repost it.
Update on our experiment: Yesterday is the first day of sun drying process. We sundried the peels outdoors, and since we conducted big batches of SAP, we can't find a container big enough that could fit all the peels (lemon, and oranges separately) all together with the avocados. So we decided to put it in small different containers. We made sure to put relatively same amounts of avocado and lemon/orange in each container. If we have small container, we made sure to put smaller amounts and bugger amounts on bigger containers. This is to prevent them from sticking together and giving them enough space to dry and prevent molds. We also did not cover the containers in mosquito nets since some containers are too low that the peels will touch the mosquito net already.
But, this time, we stirred each mixtures from time to time. We'll be doing it again tomorrow every 9:00am, 12:30pm and 2:30pm for the peels to be equally sundried and so that the bottom of the peels won't stick to the container.

About the Avocado peels, we made sure to include a lot of flesh, as you said.

As of now, the peels looks better than what it was last time. I think that stirring then and keeping an eye on them helped in preventing molds. Do you think its okay to sundry them in separate containers just like what we did? This won't cause another failure of our SAP right?

About the temperature and weather everyday, we will be checking it using an app or in google. Though this might not be as accurate as using a thermometer, do you think we can still use this?

Today is the second day of our sun drying process: The peels look better than what it was in our last experiment. We weren't able to use mosquito nets but I'll try to puts some later since there are small flies flying around our experiment.
There are also small pieces that have molds, mostly avocado peels since we added a lot of flesh in them but I only got about 5 pieces of them that has molds (as of now). I got rid of them so that it won't affect other peels too.


Are there by problems about our procedure, and do we to change something about it? Thats the only update I have for now Mr. Sybee.

I hope you still have time to help us, and I hope you know that all your efforts are well appreciated. I hope you're doing well there.

Keep safe and have fun,
Reynel

[SciB]

Hi Reynel,

Thanks for the update on your sun drying process. This is one of the steps that is hard to control because there are so many variables--sunny vs cloudy, humid vs dry, windy vs still--all or any of which can affect the drying of your peels. If I were doing it I would probably put the peels on waxed paper on a wire mesh and rig up a support for the mosquito net to keep the flies off because they are the carriers of fungal spores. The net would reduce the light and air flow somewhat, however. Everything has both negative and positive effects so you have to balance them in making your choices.

I have the Weather Channel app on my phone and the temp they give for my town usually agrees with my home digital thermometer within a degree or two, so you could use it instead of buying a thermometer. I think they also give relative humidity and wind speed.

There's no problem I see in drying the peels separately as you will be combining them later on and boiling them, and that's probably when the cross-linking reaction occurs.

I can't see anything that is wrong with what you are doing. I don't recall how many days Lakshita's peels took to dry, but I think you need to make sure they are very dry. But the negative to that is if you leave them outside too long, they get moldy which may inhibit the SAP formation, so you will have to make the call on this one and hope for the best.

All fingers crossed that this turns out well, but if it doesn't then use plan B and simply add the peel powder to the soil as if it were SAP and I feel sure that it will improve the growth of the plants. You can present it as a DIY soil amendment that will improve water holding properties in the soil, even though it is not a SAP.

We get our vaccine shots tomorrow--yaay! Not 100% safe afterwards, but safer. And the number of positive cases and hospitalizations continues to drop across the U.S. which is certainly good news.

I hope the virus is slowing down where you are.

Best of luck,

Sybee

[deleted-946958]

Hi Mr. Sybee,

I hope you're doing well there, I wonder why you haven't responded to our last update to you. I hope you still have free time, and if you're busy we understand it too.
The peels, as of now, have no molds. But, there is one tray that have molds, it is the orange and avocado peels. I assume it must be because the peels were not spread enough and the peels didn't dry just like the others on the other container. Except for the one orange peel container, the rest are well dried already. It has been sunny for the past 2 days and we expect that the sun drying will be done by February 27-28. We will be updating you everyday to what happens to our SAP.
About the one small container with Orange peels that have molds, we will just blend it right away and not mix it with others since it may affect the others that don't have molds. And the blended orange and avocado peels will serve as the Orange Avocado Powder. While the rest are Orange Avocado Mixture.

About the weather, temperature, and humidity, we are using a site on Google to check the weather everyday, but we don't know if this is accurate enough.
Do you have any questions Mr. Sybee? Maybe we have something that we forgot about, or any ideas that can improve our Experiment? We are open to consider those advices in other to improve our Project.

Thank you so much. I hope you are doing good there, and does it still snow there? I wonder what do you do in your free time.

I hope you find another reason to be a little happier and kinder today,
Reynel