Pinaki likes to stay fit by swimming and to relax by playing and listening to the piano. He also participates in choir, acting, and his church youth group. He'd like to become a biochemist, "because I really love animals, living cells, and organic chemistry." His science hero is Leonardo da Vinci, whom he describes as "a scientist ahead of his time."
At an aquarium, Pinaki heard about the dangers plastics pose to wildlife. He was delighted to see a dolphin grab a plastic bottle and pass it to a sea lion, who tossed it into a recycling bin. He decided to search for an alternative to conventional plastics. He contacted several experts who told him about biodegradeable polymers.
Pinaki discovered that the high cost of biodegradeable plastics kept them from competing in the market. He decided to try to make a less expensive version of the polymer polycaprolactone, made from the milk sugar lactose, by reinforcing it with sawdust—a cheap, renewable resource. In a series of experiments, Pinaki mixed molten polycaprolactone with various proportions of fine and coarse sawdust. He shaped the resulting composites via standard plastic-working techniques such as warm rolling, compression molding, and injection molding. He discovered one composite, with 20% sawdust, that was stronger than pure polycaprolactone. All of the composites began to degrade after two months of exposure to the environment.
