wastemanagement – InLoveWithChemistry

I’ve always been a curious person and an environmentalist. Today’s topic came from simply throwing away trash and I found my banana peels. I remembered my grandmother used them in her compost manure but I’m in town and I don’t have a garden so are there other ways of using this biodegradable material?

Banana peel is the outer shell of the banana fruit. It is used as animal food. The mineral composition of banana peel is phosphorus, iron, calcium, magnesium, and sodium. You would be surprised to know that banana peels are also replete with polyphenols, carotenoids, and other antioxidants that can help remove the toxic free radicals from your skin and body. https://www.stylecraze.com/articles/amazing-benefits-of-banana-peels/

Uses of banana peels:

Skin care
Hair health
First aid
Cleaning
Gardening

Skin care: Potential benefits include hydration, gentle exfoliation, antioxidant effects and wrinkle reduction. Rubbing a banana peel on your face can brighten skin and reduce wrinkles. On closed eyes it reduces puffiness and can be used as a moisturiser to hydrate skin. Rubbing the peel on acne scars helps them fade. It treats psoriasis and relieves itch. All these are suggested by advocates of banana peels for skin but there is no clinical research.

For Hair health: The antioxidant in banana peels neutralises free radical that keeps your hair strong and healthy. It also makes your hair soft and shinier. Proponents of natural products for health and cosmetics suggest using banana peel as an ingredient in a hair mask. I tried this at one time during lockdown in 2020 on my 4C hair. I might say there was a bit of change to my hair lustre.

First Aid: Banana peel has such properties which can give you some medicinal benefits. You can use it for sunburn or for treating a rash or a bug bite. Simply rub the inner side of the banana peel against your skin. https://doctor.ndtv.com/living-healthy/do-not-throw-away-banana-peel-some-unusual-ways-to-use-banana-peels-for-skin-teeth-and-many-more-2105729

Cleaning: Rub the inside of a banana peel on anything made of leather to spruce it up. The potassium in bananas will be absorbed into the leather and will help diminish any scuff marks. Then wipe away any remaining residue and buff with a microfiber cloth for a glossy, looking-like-new sheen. You can also blend a few banana peels to create a paste and use this to scrub your precious pieces using a soft cloth. Rinse your silverware by dipping it in a basin filled with water. Dry afterwards using a clean cloth.

In Gardening, we can add them to soil as worm food or mix them with water to make plant fertilizer. We can also compost them to manure.

There are other people who believe that banana peels can whiten teeth. Now the validity of this trend is purely based on anecdotal evidence. But when it comes to removing stains from teeth, there aren’t any scientific studies that are tagging or liking banana peels for the job.

Some people also eat banana peels. Recommendations include:

boiling banana peels in water to make a tea
using banana peels as an ingredient in chutney
blending banana peels into a fruit smoothie

Are there any other use of banana peels that you have heard of? If so, kindly share in the comments.

To begin, we have to know the avian egg from inside out. It consists of:

The egg yolk made up of a number of spherical compartments. Unlike the egg white, which contains very little fat, the yolk contains a significant amount of fatty acids such as oleic acid, palmitic acid, and linoleic acid, as well as high level of cholesterol. It also contains fat soluble vitamins (A, D, E, and K).

The egg white/albumen that is 90% water. One of the most important proteins in the albumen in terms of the egg white’s consistency is ovomucin which helps to thicken the egg white and give it its gloopy consistency.

The egg shell membrane primarily composed of fibrous proteins such as collagen type I. Eggshell membranes also contain glycosaminoglycans.

The egg’s shell is made primarily from calcium carbonate, the chemical compound which also makes up the majority of sea shells, as well as chalk and limestone.

Egg shell waste was estimated to be at 2.3 million tonnes worldwide in 2018. The food industry is the one that uses most eggs hence contributing to this pollution. When egg shells, egg shell membrane and egg white decompose it leads to production of ammonia(NH₃) and Hydrogen sulfide (H₂S) with an offensive odor that attracts insects and rodents. People have been finding ways to curb this pollution by finding solutions. Many patents have been submitted in recent years about how to recycle this waste and techniques used to make it into powder form.

Many applications have been discovered, they include in areas such as medicine, steel manufacturing, building and construction, water treatment, agriculture, paper and pulp, plastics, and paint.

The paper industry uses limestone-based raw material to produce fillers and coating pigments, such as Calcium carbonate(CaCO₃ ) pigment for printing paper and board.

Egg shells showed potential as a replacement for limestone to prepare hydroxyapatite (HAP) utilized for the sustainable treatment of toxic metal-polluted water.

In medicine, the hydroxyapatite is also used in medicine for bone repair and tissue regeneration as it is a major component in teeth and bones. The bone is made up of (Ca₁₀(PO₄)₆(OH)₂HAp) and collagen fibers. Egg shell is also an acceptable source of calcium supplement for animal feed and human health since use of shrimp and oysters will not be ecologically possible in the near future.

They can also be used as fertilizers by being converted to liquid calcium acetate fertilizer via the reaction of pulverized ES with acetic acid. Calcium carbonate fertilizers have low solubility hence unsatisfactory intake but calcium acetate is relatively neutral (0.2 M solution is pH 7.6), it does not acidify soil when used as an amendment.

They can also be used as a biodiesel catalyst since it is renewable, biodegradable, non-toxic and has low emissions.