Reusing cutlery is always better than throwing it away, but most people aren’t going to pack a knife and fork whenever they shop for fast food. , designed a recyclable plant- and wood-based material that decomposes as it decomposes.
A team at Boise State University in Idaho, led by Professor Scott Phillips, started with a substance known as isomalt.
A granular sugar alcohol derived from sugar beet, widely used as a substitute for conventional refined sugar. Isomalt is also utilized by bakers to create decorative structures in desserts. These structures are hard but brittle and readily dissolve in water.
To increase the strength of the material, scientists first heated the isomalt to a liquid state and then added either pure plant-derived cellulose, a mixture of cellulose and sawdust, or powdered wood flour. Using conventional plastic manufacturing equipment, all three mixtures were extruded into pellets that were then heated and shaped into objects such as saucers, chess pieces, and dodecahedrons.
In all three cases, the additive doubled the strength of isomalt, making it stronger than plastics such as polyethylene terephthalate (PET) and polyvinyl chloride (PVC). That said, the object was still relatively lightweight and melted in minutes when placed in water.
Given the fact that some may not want Researchers coated several saucers with a layer of food-grade shellac and cellulose acetate because the material dissolves so easily.
These coated saucers survived being submerged in water for up to 7 days, but quickly dissolved when the isomalt mixture was disassembled to expose to water. Importantly, the liquefied material can be recovered and molded into new objects that are as strong as the original.
Scientists now hope that the technology could be used to produce foodservice products that are pulverized and sprayed with water when discarded. It literally melts.
A paper on this study was recently published in the journal ACS Sustainable Chemistry and EngineeringMore information can be found in the following video.
Someday your fork or toy may be made of sugar and melt away.headline science
Source: American Chemical Society
