Jan 17, 2017 |
Scientists make plastic from pine trees
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(Nanowerk News) Most current plastics are made from oil, which is unsustainable. However, scientists from the Centre for Sustainable Chemical Technologies (CSCT) at the University of Bath have developed a renewable plastic from a chemical called pinene found in pine needles.
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Pinene is the fragrant chemical from the terpene family that gives pine trees their distinctive "Christmas smell" and is a waste product from the paper industry.
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The researchers hope the plastic could be used in a range of applications, including food packaging, plastic bags and even medical implants.
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Degradable polyesters such as PLA (polylactic acid) are made from crops such as corn or sugar cane, but PLA can be mixed with a rubbery polymer called caprolactone to make it more flexible. Caprolactone is made from crude oil, and so the resulting plastic isn't totally renewable.
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The researchers publishing their results in the journal Polymer Chemistry ("Polymerisation of a terpene-derived lactone: a bio-based alternative to ε-caprolactone"), used pinene as the raw material to make a new type of plastic that can be used in the place of caprolactone.
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Helena Quilter, PhD student at the CSCT, explained: "We're not talking about recycling old Christmas trees into plastics, but rather using a waste product from industry that would otherwise be thrown away, and turning it into something useful.
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"So if we can make a plastic from sustainable sources, it could make a big difference to the environment."
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Professor Matthew Davidson, Director of the CSCT and Whorrod Professor of Sustainable Chemical Technologies, added: "This research is part of a wider project that looks at using bio-based chemicals like pinene as a sustainable starting material for making a range of useful products, in the place of petrochemicals. This reduces our reliance on fossil fuels and provides a renewable feedstock that has the potential to revolutionise the chemical industry."
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The project, funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), is also investigating using other terpenes, such as limonene from citrus fruit, as a substitute for petrochemicals to make a range of products from plastics to pharmaceuticals.
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The research is still at the early stages - only a few grams have been made so far - but the scientists aim to scale up the process to produce larger quantities in the near future.
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