Bacterial enzyme makes new type of biodegradable polymer

Strings of sugars called polysaccharides are the most abundant biopolymers on Earth. Because of their versatile and environmentally friendly properties, these molecules could eventually replace some plastics. Now, researchers ...

Self-cleaning bioplastics repel liquid and dirt

RMIT Ph.D. researcher Mehran Ghasemlou, lead author of the study published in Science of the Total Environment, said the new bioplastic was ideal for fresh food and takeaway packaging.

'Plugging in' to produce environmentally friendly bioplastics

Bioplastics—biodegradable plastics made from biological substances rather than petroleum—can be created in a more economical and environmentally friendly way from the byproducts of corn stubble, grasses and mesquite agricultural ...

Turning plastic into foam to combat pollution

Biodegradable plastics are supposed to be good for the environment. But because they are specifically made to degrade quickly, they cannot be recycled.

Turning wood into plastic

Efforts to shift from petrochemical plastics to renewable and biodegradable plastics have proven tricky—the production process can require toxic chemicals and is expensive, and the mechanical strength and water stability ...

New science behind biodegradable algae-based flip-flops

As the world's most popular shoe, flip-flops account for a troubling percentage of plastic waste that ends up in landfills, on seashores and in our oceans. Scientists at the University of California San Diego have spent years ...

Sustainable adhesives of the future won't stick around

For the health of the planet and our own bodies, plastics of the future ideally should not be made of plastics at all but should still be able to function like plastics. One particularly important job that plastics perform ...

Nanocontainer ships titan-size gene therapies and drugs into cells

Scientists at Johns Hopkins Medicine report they have created a tiny, nanosize container that can slip inside cells and deliver protein-based medicines and gene therapies of any size—even hefty ones attached to the gene-editing ...

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