Turning waste products into bio plastics by athanassia athanassiou

Turning waste products into bio plastics by Athanassia Athanassiou

One of the available technology that we chose is bioplastic technology. The varieties of this technology is it could use various type of food waste such as rice,spinach,cocoa and parsley.  Bioplastics with a wide range of mechanical properties were directly obtained from industrially processed edible vegetable and cereal  wastes. Bioplastics also have broad compatibility with cellulose, amorphous cellulose can be naturally plasticized with these bioplastics by simply mixing during processing.

Solution in TFA =   CEL-OH +  CF3COOH =>CEL-OOCF3+ H20

TFA evaporation=   CEL-OOCF3+ H20=>=   CEL-OH +  CF3COOH

Athanassia Athanassiou, Ilker S. Bayer and colleagues at the Italian Institute of Technology point out that plastic’s popularity is constantly growing. They had successfully turned waste products into bioplastic in Italy. Athanassia Athanassiou since January 2011 has an appointment as Senior Researcher, responsible for the Smart Materials Group, in the Nanophysics Department of the Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia in Genoa. In September 2014 she became Tenured Scientist. 

The advantages of bioplastics is it is environmental friendly. We could reduce the usage of petroleum to make plastic whic is non renewable. Bioplastics wont be releasing toxic components with the potential to harm the environment and human health. The cons of bioplastics is its process is challenging and costly. Which with more research, we could make the process more simpler and cost less.

This technology could really help our project due to its lot of advantages which complement to the objectives of this project. Which is,it need to be environmental friendly. It also complement the main objective which to convert waste products into wealth opportunity. These bioplastics will surely could rival synthetic plastics. Thus,will sell lots and produce more profit.

References

http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/ma5008557

http://www.acs.org/content/acs/en/pressroom/presspacs/2014/acs-presspac-august-20-2014/turning-waste-from-rice-parsley-and-other-foods-into-biodegradable-plastic.html

http://www.iit.it/en/people/athanassia-athanassiou.html