Biodegradable bamboo plastic is solid and easy to recycle

Hard plastic made from bamboo is as strong and durable as conventional plastics for uses such as household appliances and automotive interiors, but is also recyclable and biodegrades easily in the ground.

Plastics derived from biological material, or bioplastics, are increasingly popular, but they still represent only about half a hundred of the more than 400 million tonnes of plastics produced each year. This is, in part, because bioplastics do not have the mechanical resistance of many oil -based plastics and cannot be easily used in current manufacturing processes either.

Now, Dawei Zhao at the University of Chemical Technology in Shenyang in China and his colleagues has developed a means of producing plastic from cellulose derived from bamboo, which can reproduce or exceed the properties of many widely used plastics.

“The rapid growth of bamboo makes it a very renewable resource, offering a lasting alternative to traditional sources of wood, but its current applications are still largely limited to more traditional woven products”, explains Zhao.

Zhao and his team first treated bamboo by adding zinc chloride and a simple acid, which breaks down the strong chemical bonds and produces a soup of smaller cellulose molecules. They then added ethanol, which means that the cellulose molecules reorganize in a solid and solidified plastic.

The tenacity of plastic is comparable to commonly used engineering plastics – solid plastics used in vehicles, household appliances and construction, explains Andrew Dove at the University of Birmingham, in the United Kingdom, which was not involved in the study.

However, its rigidity also means that its potential uses are not the most common. “It is not something that will challenge the use of the main plastics that we use in the packaging, such as polyethylene and polypropylene,” explains Dove. “But although it targets a smaller set of engineering plastics, it could still help to alleviate some of the holder’s supply concerns [plastics] In this area.

Although it is not as inexpensive as some of the most commonly used plastics, Zhao and his team have found that it can be completely recycled while keeping 90% of its original force, which could make it more economically attractive. They also point out that it is biodegradable within 50 days, although this assertion did not resist a meticulous examination for other biodegradable plastics.