New method can degrade plant plastic into fertilizer
Xinhua News Agency, Tokyo, April 23 (reporter Qian Zheng) Japanese researchers recently reported that they through a new method of polymer material design, improve the functionality of plant-based plastics, at the same time, after the use of waste plastics can be degraded into fertilizer to be used again. The relevant paper has been published in the British journal Polymer Chemistry.
According to a press release released by the University of Tokyo, previous studies have found that isosorbide polycarbonate (PIC) extracted from glucose reacts with ammonia, and the mixture of isosorbide and urea, the decomposition product, can be used as fertilizer. However, PIC itself is relatively fragile, and its function needs to be improved to make it more practical if it is to be used as a polymer material.
In this study, researchers at the University of Tokyo and Chiba University, among other institutions, used a new method of polymer material design to make a copolymer of mannitol and isosorbide from plants, which showed better heat resistance and degraded faster than PIC. The researchers mixed the degradation products of this copolymer, such as isosorbide, with urea and used them in the cultivation test of the most common model plant, Arabidopsis thaliana, and confirmed that these degradations can play the function of fertilizer.
Bulletin said that the synthesized copolymer from plant sugar as raw materials, renewable, is expected to be used as bioengineering plastics in the future. The new method of polymer material design in this study can help to solve the problem of waste plastics and food.