This tableware made from sugarcane and bamboo breaks down in 60 days


Date:
November 12, 2020
Source:
Cell Press
Summary:
Scientists have designed a set of 'green' tableware made from
sugarcane and bamboo that doesn't sacrifice on convenience or
functionality and could serve as a potential alternative to plastic
cups and other disposable plastic containers, which can take as
long as 450 years or require high temperatures to degrade. This
non-toxic, eco-friendly material only takes 60 days to break down.



FULL STORY ========================================================================== Scientists have designed a set of "green" tableware made from sugarcane
and bamboo that doesn't sacrifice on convenience or functionality
and could serve as a potential alternative to plastic cups and
other disposable plastic containers. Unlike traditional plastic or biodegradable polymers -- which can take as long as 450 years or require
high temperatures to degrade -- this non- toxic, eco-friendly material
only takes 60 days to break down and is clean enough to hold your morning coffee ordinner takeout. This plastic alternative is presented November
12 in the journal Matter.


==========================================================================
"To be honest, the first time I came to the US in 2007, I was shocked by
the available one-time use plastic containers in the supermarket," says corresponding author Hongli (Julie) Zhu of Northeastern University. "It
makes our life easier, but meanwhile, it becomes waste that cannot
decompose in the environment." She later saw many more plastic bowls,
plates, and utensils thrown into the trash bin at seminars and parties
and thought, "Can we use a more sustainable material?" To find an
alternative for plastic-based food containers, Zhu and her colleagues
turned to bamboos and one of the largest food-industry waste products:
bagasse, also known as sugarcane pulp. Winding together long and thin
bamboo fibers with short and thick bagasse fibers to form a tight network,
the team molded containers from the two materials that were mechanically
stable and biodegradable. The new green tableware is not only strong
enough to hold liquids as plastic does and cleaner than biodegradables
made from recycled materials that might not be fully de-inked, but also
starts decomposing after being in the soil for 30-45 days and completely
loses its shape after 60 days.

"Making food containers is challenging. It needs more than being biodegradable," said Zhu. "On one side, we need a material that is
safe for food; on the other side, the container needs to have good
wet mechanical strength and be very clean because the container will
be used to take hot coffee, hot lunch." The researchers added alkyl
ketene dimer (AKD), a widely used eco-friendly chemical in the food
industry, to increase oil and water resistance of the molded tableware, ensuring the sturdiness of the product when wet. With the addition of
this ingredient, the new tableware outperformed commercial biodegradable
food containers, such as other bagasse-based tableware and egg cartons,
in mechanical strength, grease resistance, and non-toxicity.

The tableware the researchers developed also comes with another
advantage: a significantly smaller carbon footprint. The new product's manufacturing process emits 97% less CO2 than commercially available
plastic containers and 65% less CO2 than paper products and biodegradable plastic. The next step for the team is to make the manufacturing process
more energy efficient and bring the cost down even more, to compete
with plastic. Although the cost of cups made out of the new material ($2,333/ton) is two times lower than that of biodegradable plastic ($4,750/ton), traditional plastic cups are still slightly cheaper
($2,177/ton).

"It is difficult to forbid people to use one-time use containers because
it's cheap and convenient," says Zhu. "But I believe one of the good
solutions is to use more sustainable materials, to use biodegradable
materials to make these one-time use containers."

========================================================================== Story Source: Materials provided by Cell_Press. Note: Content may be
edited for style and length.


========================================================================== Journal Reference:
1. Chao Liu, Pengcheng Luan, Qiang Li, Zheng Cheng, Xiao Sun,
Daxian Cao,
Hongli Zhu. Biodegradable, Hygienic, and Compostable Tableware from
Hybrid Sugarcane and Bamboo Fibers as Plastic Alternative. Matter,
2020; DOI: 10.1016/j.matt.2020.10.004 ==========================================================================

Link to news story: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/11/201112113139.htm

--- up 11 weeks, 3 days, 7 hours, 50 minutes
* Origin: -=> Castle Rock BBS <=- Now Husky HPT Powered! (1337:3/111)