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 ...

Bioplastics in the sustainability dilemma

Plastics made from crops such as maize or sugarcane instead of fossil fuels are generally considered sustainable. One reason is that plants bind CO2, which compensates for the carbon released into the atmosphere when plastics ...

A bioplastic that protects against UV radiation

Researchers at the University of Oulu's Research Unit of Sustainable Chemistry have developed a new synthetic bioplastic that, unlike traditional carbon-based plastics or other bioplastics, provides protection from the sun's ...

Turning food waste into bioplastics

An ingenious new solution being engineered at the University of Canterbury (UC) aims to turn food waste into valuable chemical components that could be used to make bioplastics.

Sustainable 'plastics' are on the horizon

A new Tel Aviv University study describes a process to make bioplastic polymers that don't require land or fresh water—resources that are scarce in much of the world. The polymer is derived from microorganisms that feed ...

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