Brazilian Scientists have found a way to utilize fibers from, Bananas, coconuts, and pineapples to create a stronger, lighter and biodegradable alternative to petroleum based plastics. These nanocellulose plastics are 30% lighter and 3-4 times stronger than the current petroleum based plastics as well as being more resistant to heat, gasoline and water.
They are first looking into automotive plastics such as dashboards, bumpers and some body panels for the material, but they think that it might eventually be able to replace steel and aluminum automotive parts as well.
They create the material by cooking the leaves and stems of these plants in what is basically a pressure cooker, and it yields a material that looks like talcum powder but is actually strands of nanocellulosic fibres so small that 50,000 fit in the diameter of a human hair.
The cost is realatively prohibitive at the moment but the lab is only working with small quantities of the material and they said that price would go down as production scales up, especially if the auto industry embraced the technology. One pound of nanocellulose can produce 100 lbs. of plastic.
Alcides Leão presented his findings today at the 241st National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society in Anaheim, California.
Sounds neat, a plastic stronger than Kevlar that weighs less and is biodegradable? Whats not to like?
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