Green Science Alliance Co., Ltd. has Successfully Made Biomass Derived Nano Cellulose Composite Material with Plastic Waste

KAWANISHI, Japan, Dec. 3, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Nano Cellulose is said to be a next-generation environmentally friendly material. It is derived from natural biomass resources such as trees, plants, waste woods and even paper scrap. Therefore, nano cellulose is recyclable and biodegradable. Because its raw material is an abundant natural resource, it is obtainable at low cost. Therefore, nano cellulose is an excellent green, next-generation nanomaterial. The high aspect ratio of nano cellulose originates from its width (4–20 nm) and its length (several micrometers). It weighs approximately 1/5 that of steel, but it is more than 5 times stronger. Nano cellulose has low thermal expansion coefficient, comparable to that of glass fiber, although its elasticity modulus is higher than that of glass fiber, making it a hard, strong, and robust material. Therefore, nano cellulose composites with plastics are expected to mechanically strengthen the plastic and to reduce the weight. Furthermore, deformation would be suppressed at plastic molding process due to its low thermal expansion coefficient. In addition, mixing nano cellulose can render plastics biodegradable to some extent. Hence, nano cellulose can be an excellent new material for automotive, aeronautic, architectural, film, container, and other applications while having a positive environmental impact. 

So far, Green Science Alliance Co., Ltd. has successfully established a manufacturing process for mixing nano cellulose with various thermoplastic plastics, biodegradable plastics already. But all of these materials are nano cellulose composite with freshly new grade plastic. This time, they have made nano cellulose composite with polypropylene (PP) from plastic pallet waste, and polyethylene (PE) from diapers, and successfully enhanced mechanical strength. Namely, they were able to make cutting edge materials from plastic waste and enhance their mechanical strength which was degraded after many years of usage. Since Asian countries, including China, started prohibiting import of those plastic wastes, this could be one solution to re-use and re-worth plastic waste materials.

In addition, even if one could make plastic waste stronger with glass fiber or carbon fiber, those composites could be weakened again due to destruction of those fiber materials during reprocessing because they are not in nano size range. In this regard, because nano cellulose is nano size, even during processing, those enhanced fiber structures would not be destroyed. Detailed experimental research will be necessary to confirm and conclude, but it may be possible to use nano cellulose and plastic waste composite materials several times by reprocessing. 

Contact:
Ryohei Mori
81727598543
[email protected]

SOURCE Green Science Alliance Co., Ltd.