A Biofriendly
World
The Background of Bioplastics
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What Are Bioplastics?
Bioplastics are plastics derived from renewable biomass such as plants, vegetable fats, and oils, or microbiota. Most of these renewed plastics biodegrade much more rapidly compared to commodity fossil-fuel derived plastics. These bioplastics are much more eco-friendly due to their ability to decompose at the speed from 3-6 months compared to regular plastics that can take from 10 to 1000 years! Bioplastic can be produced by a growing selection of biodegradable and renewable materials from sugarcane to algae!
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How Are Bioplastics Made?
These bio-friendly products work by containing additives that cause them to decay more rapidly in the presence of light and oxygen. Some bioplastics are biodegradable, or can be broken down by living organisms like bacteria, helping speed up the process. Each bioplastic material has a different strength, flexibility, and texture that make each unique and better fitting for certain products than others, due to its chemical makeup and reaction. Usually, bioplastics use the crop's derived oils or powders to create these plastics in replacement of non-renewable, harmful oils.
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The Importance of Bioplastics
Bioplastics have the potential to not only slow down our growing crisis of plastic pollution, but can also help in getting rid of degradation issues certain enzymes and bacteria helping the plastic degrade much faster than synthetic plastics, allowing us to use plastics at the rate we are, while helping solve 2 major issues.
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Renewable Materials
Sugarcane
Sugarcane is an effective renewable source of plastic due to bagasse, or sugarcane refinement: the leftover fiber that remains after sugarcane stalks are crushed, being capable of converting into a bioplastic.
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Corn
Corn starch, or polylactic acid (PLA) is one of the most important biodegradable and biobased thermoplastics that is most active in bioplastic research due to its proven ability to not only biodegrade faster than synthetic plastics, but have a high yield and tensile strength.
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Soybean
Soybean is also a potential material for bioplastics. Researchers have altered the composition of soy to make it retain a higher percentage of water since soy has a great capacity for absorption, which makes it an ideal material.
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Algae
Algae, simple, typically aquatic plants are highly effective biomass generators that could be easily grown locally, that turns carbon molecules into starch through photosynthesis, releasing oxygen molecules into the atmosphere as a byproduct, not only providing bioplastics, but aiding in the fight against greenhouse gases.
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Starch
Creating thermoplastic starch, starch is derived from numerous crops, including not only corn, but potatoes, wheat, and beans and is one of the most abundant polymers. Though starch derived bioplasics are one of the more expensive solutions, it is already used to create many different types of bioplastic packaging and products.
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Polybutylene Succinate
Falling into a class of polyesters, polymers are synthesized from succinic acid and butanediol. Both possessing the ability to be produced from renewable feedstock such as glucose and sucrose through fermentation. PBS is a cost-effective alternative to other biopolymers such as PLA, PBAT, and PHB.
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A Growing Industry
Bioplastic production has been on the rise globally for the past decade and is predicted to grow more than 50% by 2020 in many different categories, such as for non-packaging products, flexible packaging, and rigid packaging.
Both graphs depict the predicted amount of these bioplastics that will be biodegradable, with the first figure illustrating the general prediction of globally produced bioplastics in the incoming years, while the second figure exhibits a more specific view on what type of bioplastic products are being predicted to be made in the future.
At this predicted rate, plastic will definitely still be an issue for humanity's future, although with consistent advancing research along with consumer awareness to properly dispose of all garbage along with an effort to use renewable products as much as possible instead of disposable single-use ones, humanity could be put on the path to helping our planet become less drowned in our own trash.
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Manufactured bioplastic has been increasing by a number of producers, from businesses like Mango Materials Inc., to Metabolix Inc. & Telles. Most companies have utilized Polylactic acid (PLA) and Polyhydroxybutyrate (PHB) to produce their plastic products, due to both materials' ability to be truly biodegradable and biocompatible plastics that are appealing environmental-friendly alternatives to fossil-based thermoplastics.
Typical applications of PLA are disposable tableware articles, though other potential applications could include soil retention sheething and other agriculture films, shopping bags, and the use as packaging material in general. When spun into fibers, PLA could also create woven and non-woven biodegradable one-use fabric products such as disposable garments, feminie hygiene products, and diapers.
PBH is already used to produce disposable tableware articles, soil retention sheething, waste and shopping bags, and packaging material. PHB can also be spun into fibers which could be used as surgical sutures. They could also potentially be useful in other biomedical applications including drug delivery systems and biodegradable implanted medical devices.
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