Researchers turn wood into plastic or use it in car manufacturing

Plastic is one of the largest sources of pollution on Earth and takes hundreds of years to degrade naturally. According to foreign media reports, the Yale School of the Environment (YSE) and the University of Maryland (University of Maryland) Maryland researchers are using wood by-products to create more durable and sustainable bioplastics to address one of the world's most pressing environmental problems.

Yuan Yao, an assistant professor at the Yale School of the Environment (YSE), and Liangbing, a professor at the Center for Materials Innovation at the University of Maryland A collaborative study by Hu et al. deconstructs the porous matrix in natural wood into pulp. The researchers said that the produced biomass plastics exhibit high mechanical strength and stability when holding liquids, as well as UV resistance, and can also be recycled or safely biodegrade in the natural environment. Its life-cycle environmental impact is lower compared to petroleum-based plastics and other biodegradable plastics.

"We have developed a straightforward manufacturing process to produce bio-based plastics from wood with good mechanical properties," Yao said.

To create the slurry mixture, the researchers started with wood chips (processing residues from lumber mills) and deconstructed the loose porous structure in the powder using a biodegradable and recyclable deep eutectic solvent (DES). In the resulting mixture, due to the nanoscale entanglement and hydrogen bonding between regenerated lignin and cellulose micro/nanofibers, the material has a high solids content and high viscosity, and can be cast and rolled without cracking.

The researchers then conducted a comprehensive life cycle assessment to test the environmental impact of bioplastics versus regular plastics. The results showed that the bioplastic sheet was buried in the soil, and the material was broken after two weeks and completely degraded after three months; in addition, the researchers said that the bioplastic can also be decomposed into a slurry by mechanical stirring, The DES is thus recovered and reused.

"The advantage of this plastic is that it can be fully recycled or biodegraded. We have minimized the waste of materials going into nature," Yao said.

Liangbing Professor Hu said: "This bioplastic has a wide range of applications. For example, it can be molded into a film for plastic bags and packaging. This is one of the main uses of plastic and one of the causes of waste. In addition, the researchers said that this bioplastic can be molded into different shapes, so it is also expected to be used in automobile manufacturing.

The team will continue to explore the impact of scaling up production on forests, as large-scale production may require the use of large amounts of wood, which may have profound effects on forests, land management, ecosystems and climate change. The research team has worked with forest ecologists to create forest simulation models that link the forest growth cycle to the wood-plastic manufacturing process.