A New Type Of Pet Like Plastics From Waste Biomass

 

Getting rid of fossil fuels and avoiding the accumulation of plastics in the environment are key to the challenge of climate change. Recently, under the leadership of Professor Jeremy lutbach of the school of basic sciences of the Federal Institute of technology in Lausanne, Switzerland, researchers have developed a biomass derived plastic similar to pet (polyethylene terephthalate), which meets the standards for replacing several existing plastics and is more environmentally friendly.

The reason why traditional plastics are so extensive is that they combine the advantages of low cost, thermal stability, mechanical strength, processability and compatibility. Any plastic alternative must catch up with or surpass these advantages, which has always been a challenging task.

"We basically 'cook' wood or other inedible plant materials, such as agricultural waste, with cheap chemicals to produce plastic precursors in one step," lutbach said By maintaining the integrity of sugar structure in the molecular structure of plastics, this chemical method is much simpler than the current production methods of plastic substitutes.

The technique is based on a finding by lutbach and colleagues in 2016 that adding an aldehyde stabilizes certain parts of plant material and avoids destroying them during extraction. By reusing the chemical, researchers are able to reconstruct a new and useful biologically based chemical as a precursor to plastics.

"By using a different aldehyde - glyoxylic acid rather than formaldehyde - we can simply clamp sugar molecules in the middle with 'sticky' groups, so they can act as building blocks for plastics," said Lorenz mank, lead author of the study This simple technology can convert up to 25% of agricultural waste or 95% of pure sugar into plastics.

The versatile properties of new plastics make them suitable for packaging, textiles, medicine, electronic products and other applications. Researchers have made packaging films, fibers that can be made into clothes or other textiles, and filaments for 3D printing.

"This plastic has very exciting properties, especially in applications such as food packaging." Lutbach says it's unique because of its complete sugar structure, which makes the plastic very easy to make and easy to degrade.