Although glass is touted as being fully recyclable, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency says only about one-third of glass is actually discarded. obtain recycling. With that problem in mind, scientists have developed a new type of biodegradable glass.
Experimental glasses created by researchers at the Chinese Academy of Sciences are made from either of two chemically modified components: amino acids or peptides.Amino acids are molecules that combine to form proteins, peptides are short chains of amino acid.
The manufacturing process begins by heating an amino acid or peptide powder in an inert gas atmosphere above its melting point, but below the molecular decomposition temperature.
The molten material can then be subjected to a supercooling process that cools it below normal freezing temperatures without freezing the solid. Finally, the material is quenched with water, rapidly changing to a transparent solid state without crystallization.
Xing Rui
Laboratory tests have found that the glass exhibits “excellent optical properties, excellent mechanical properties, and flexible processability.” The latter refers to the fact that they can be easily cast into commercial molds or 3D printed. And importantly, when the glass shards were composted, depending on the specific amino acids or peptides used, microorganisms in the soil degraded them within 3 weeks to 7.5 months. .
Studies in mice have also shown that glass biodegrades harmlessly in the body. This suggests applications such as drug delivery implants that do not need to be removed after the job is done.
“The concept of biomolecular glasses, which goes beyond commercially used glasses and plastics, may underlie green life technologies for a sustainable future,” said lead scientist Professor Yan Xuehai. I’m here. “However, biomolecular glasses are currently in the experimental stage and far from large-scale commercialization.”
A paper on this study was recently published in the journal scientific progress.
Source: Chinese Academy of Sciences
