The war against charge plate is have some new players . In addition to businesses like Starbucks andMcDonald’sbanning charge card straws , scientists have been work on their own alternative to unrecyclable plastic wrapper .
Researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology have used discarded crab louse casing and tree diagram fibers to develop a material akin to plastic clingstone wrap , according toIFL Science . The crustacean ' shells contain a substance called chitin , which is the second most abundant polymer found in nature , researcherswrotein a study published inACS Sustainable Chemistry & Engineering .
Cellulose , which is often used to make paper and certain fabric , is the most common natural polymer , and scientists say it could be source sustainably from the paper diligence .
The material is created by atomizer - coat a polylactic acid ( PLA ) base with these two materials in alternate layers . “ The chitin and the cellulose are oppositely charged , ” Carson Meredith , lead author of the newspaper publisher , say in avideo . “ That allowed them to build nice hoagie - layer as they ’re coated and create dumb , thin films that lug the transmittal of atomic number 8 . ”
It ’s similar to oil - based plastic packaging , but researcher say their clingstone wrapping could keep foods fresher for a long period of sentence because less oxygen penetrates the material .
The Georgia researcher are n’t the only ones reverse to the laboratory to tackle the issue ofplastic waste . Other pseudo plastics have been created by transforming the sugars in corn starch , manioca , and sugarcane into PLA , which is biodegradable . Another biodegradable textile calledpolyhydroxyalkanoate(PHA for short ) is a raw product of some microorganisms . However , according to Columbia University , a 2010 work on these bioplastics bring out that their production may be a greater source of contamination than traditional plastics , so their use might not be a surefire solution either .
[ h / tIFL Science ]
