Particles so small, we need powerful microscopes to see them. They hold the key to making plastic stronger and biodegradable. They're nanocrystals and commercial use could be just a few years away.
Dr. William Winter at the SUNY ESF is developing a new component for plastic that makes it 3,000 times stronger and biodegradable. Nanocrystals of cellulose are being extracted from natural materials like trees and shrub willows using a reactor to produce a viscous, white liquid that goes into a microcompounder where it is mixed to produce a crystal-reinforced plastic, as opposed to a traditional reinforcement material like glass, which is heavier, harder to work with and not as strong.
SUNY ESF is developing a new component for plastic that makes it stronger and biodegradable. Terry Ettinger has more.
"When you're finished using your plastic and you put it in a landfill, the glass doesn't go anywhere, it stays there for centuries. So the advantage here is we're using plant particles as an alternative to the glass. Anything that's made in nature can be destroyed in nature and these cellulosic particles have a lifetime in a landfill of less than 90 days, at which time they go back into carbon dioxide and water," Winter said.
The key to making usable plastics with nanocrystals, so-called because they're so small, at just billionths of a meter, is getting them to stick together with the plastic,
"Cellulose is a hydrophilic material and more of your matrix materials are hydrophobic. Those two types of materials generally don't mix well and what we're trying to do is add some chemical groups on the surface that will make the cellulose more hydrophobic so that they'll blend with the hydrophobic matrix," said graduate student Jacon Goodrich.
The microcompounder helps disperse the chemically altered crystals throughout the plastic material for maximum strength. These cellulosic nanocrystals also have the attention of the military and law enforcement in the development of a new generation of body armor.