Materials News
Making plastics from food and biomass a reality Agricultural crops and food wastes are helping restore faith in plastics as an eco-friendly material, says Angelica Buan in this report.
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lastic is shedding its image as an environmental offender with materials derived from agricultural feedstock and wastes. Firms are also starting to embrace the necessity of developing and utilising biobased plastics as part of their sustainability plans. The market is also becoming favourable towards consumption of eco-friendly products. Allied Market Research finds that the key drivers for the growth of bioplastics market is indeed an increasing adoption of biodegradable plastics that usher in new trends; and increasing popularity of bioplastics use in the end user industries. Nevertheless, there is still the high production cost that gets in between wider adoption and maximised growth. Food, glorious food Food, being a renewable feedstock, is now becoming more available and accessible for industrial use. Technology is also enabling agricultural feedstock not to compete with human food consumption; and government policies are incentivising towards utilisation of these renewable resources. Just the same, challenges in production costs may be surmounted over time, against the environmental savings that can be accrued. For example, Infiniti Research in its Global Bioplastics Market report projects an environmental savings of US$1.3 billion/year if aerated beverage manufacturers utilise algae-based bioplastics. Meanwhile, according to the United Nations Environment Programme, 5 billion tonnes/year of agricultural biomass waste is produced. Thus, the supply of materials is abundant and often underutilised, yet the materials can be relatively low cost and help manufacturers offset the use of glass fibres and talc for more sustainable, lightweight products.
Seed technologies to harvest bio-oils Australia’s abundance in safflower has led to the country developing a technology for deriving oil from the flower’s seeds. Currently, the national science agency, Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) and the Grains Research Development Corporation (GRDC), are involved in a joint project, under Crop Biofactories Initiatives (CBI), to produce safflower seed oil that contains over 92% oleic acid, hence called Super-High Oleic (SHO) safflower.
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AUGUST 2016
CSIRO’s researchers have produced safflower seed oil called Super-High Oleic (SHO) safflower for potential use in bioplastics
Safflower is easy to grow, is resistant to heat and drought, and is adaptable to dry climates and irrigation and also works well in rotational cropping. Though the agencies say it is currently a relatively minor and underutilised crop in Australia due to a small domestic market for safflower oil. Only about 10,000 ha were grown in 2014 and the seed is mainly used for confectionery and birdseed. However, the potential is there. CSIRO says that SHO safflower has performed well in field trials. “The oil produced in the seed has significantly higher stability than conventional oils and performs as well or better than synthetic oils derived from fossil reserves. These properties will see it attain a higher market value than normal crop oils, which should be reflected in a higher farm-gate value for growers,” it said. It also says the stability of the oleic acid makes the bio-oil especially suitable for high temperature industrial applications such as lubricants and transformer fluids, and it can also be processed to build a range of complex polymers for use in bioplastics and surface coatings. The technology required to produce SHO safflower, consisting of a standard cold press or solvent extraction process used currently to extract seed oil from sunflower, canola, soybean, and cotton, has been licensed to Australian clean technology firm GO Resources, which has expertise in biotechnology, industrial lubricants and oleochemicals. The commercialisation agreement will work towards the deregulation of GM events