IBM invents Earth-friendly plastic made from plants

[kpete]

Source: Raw Story/AFP

IBM invents Earth-friendly plastic made from plants

By Agence France-Presse

SAN FRANCISCO (AFP) – IBM researchers on Tuesday said they have discovered a way to make Earth-friendly plastic from plants that could replace petroleum-based products tough on the environment.

The breakthrough promises biodegradable plastics made in a way that saves on energy, according to Chandrasekhar "Spike" Narayan, a manager of science and technology at IBM's Almaden Research Center in Northern California.

Almaden and Stanford University researchers said the discovery could herald an era of sustainability for a plastics industry rife with seemingly eternal products notorious for cramming landfills and littering the planet.

"This discovery and new approach using organic catalysts could lead to well-defined, biodegradable molecules made from renewable resources in an environmentally responsible way," IBM said in a release.

Read more: http://rawstory.com/2010/03/ibm-invents-earthfriendly-plastics-plants/

[MadHound]

1. IBM reinvents the wheel

GW Carver already invented this, based on soybeans, over a century ago. A corn based plastic was in production over twenty years ago. It isn't that we're lacking for these sort of plastics, it seems to be an unwillingness on the part of corporate America to adapt these plastics to widespread use.

[HughBeaumont]

6. It's all about the o-i-l.

Giant Oil has it's hand dipped in everything, and they don't want a damn thing changed in that regard. This mutual back-scratching is no exception.

[WriteDown]

8. See post 7. nt

[backtomn]

16. Unfortunately......Oil is cheap....

From what I hear, Oil is twice as cheap (in terms of cost per unit of carbon) as ethanol, but as much as 20+ times cheaper than wind or solar (minus subsidies). Cost is driving the energy markets. We need more investment on cheaper energy sources.

[WriteDown]

7. Reputedly....

He left no formulas or any instructions on how to make a lot of the stuff he said he had invented.

[Maat]

10. Yes, I have corn plastic products in my cupboard.

I bought them from Ecoproducts.

[backtomn]

14. I agree completely......

Bio-Degradable Poly-Lactic-Acid Polymers (based on corn) were invented many years ago and were more recently (late 80's) improved upon by large grain companies. The problem had been that, in spite of the environmental benefits (rapid degradation in soil), the plastics were more expensive than petroleum-based material. With some products (breakfast cereal, etc.), packaging is more expensive than the product itself. Surveys showed that consumers were NOT willing to pay the extra for the new plastic. I hear that they are improving cost, but this is still an issue.

[grumpy in StL]

33. Not just cost or oil cos......

These materials do not behave like standard polymers under normal conditions of storage and use.
There have been some pilot projects that have been dismal failures.
Hot, high humidity envirnments destroy it.
This is promising, and i am hopeful, but I will not jump up and down yet.

[rickford66]

2. what's new?

Henry Ford built a car body out of soybeans.

[RainDog]

9. Ford made a car body out of HEMP that was 10x stronger than steel in 1941

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4rgDyEO_8cI

I never heard of him making a car out of soybeans.

Hemp was essential to our war effort in WWII, as well as the Revolutionary War.

which is also why IBM's news isn't news.

the lengths to which this govt will go to suppress a product that Dupont, Hearst, and big oil didn't like is amazing.

[rickford66]

27. Soybean Car

"I never heard of him making a car out of soybeans."

Read this from the Benson Ford Research Center then.

http://www.thehenryford.org/research/soybeancar.aspx

[RainDog]

28. your link claims the composition of the car was unknown but likely included hemp

while my link shows a definite example of a hemp car.

the "soybean" car, in other words, has less evidence to support it and is likely the same as the hemp car noted above, which used other fibers, as noted in the video above.

[rickford66]

29. from the website

"the man who was instrumental in creating the car, Lowell E. Overly, claims it was "…soybean fiber in a phenolic resin with formaldehyde used in the impregnation."

[Gman2]

3. All plastics are not alike.

I would wager that this MIGHT help food packaging, and toys. Structural items, likely not. Consumer products, nope. But food packaging is big. And it all winds up at the dump. Whats wrong with real recycling?

[ccinamon]

4. There's a company that makes travel mugs and other items

out of a corn "plastic"....will decompose in landfills...needs the right amount of heat and humidity..very cool stuff!

[Steerpike]

5. cheech and chong did that in the 70's

dude...

[LaPera]

11. This is great news! But I find it strange that IBM is working with an oil based economy Saudi Arabia

to develop an "Eco-friendly plastic" to make the oil based (petroleum) products like plastic bottles, etc. obsolete.

And well they should be obsolete, a long time coming and I hope this Eco-friendly plant based "plastic" takes over from the way too long of the polluting of our planet by petroleum based plastics.

Still, I find it curious that IBM is working with an oil exporting nation like Saudi Arabia to develop this plant based "plastic".

"IBM is working with scientists at King Abdulaziz City for Science and Technology in Saudi Arabia to put the discovery to work in the recycling of plastics used in food and beverage containers."

[wickerwoman]

32. Saudi Arabia can see the writing on the wall.

No point keeping a death-grip monopoly on a product you're about to run out of.

If they don't diversify in the next twenty years, their economy will be in ruins in forty.

[valerief]

12. Woo hoo!!!! Now that's some good science!!!!

:woohoo:

[David Zephyr]

13. My reaction, too.

Non petroleum based polymers that are biodegradable. Good science.

[Jeff In Milwaukee]

17. Oh sure....

Now thousands of innocent plants will pay with their very lives...

How can you "woo hoo" at a time like this?





Almost forgot...

:sarcasm:

[valerief]

20. Ah, not needed, my friend. I've got a sense of humor! Ha! nt

[Regret My New Name]

24. doh!

you said it before me :P I thought i scanned the thread first to make sure, I guess I missed this... oh well. I will a quicker smartass in the future.

[Jeff In Milwaukee]

25. the horror.......the horror......

[Winterblues]

15. Another great use for Hemp.

:shrug:

[wordpix]

18. there are already bioplastics made of corn, potato starch et al.

I looked into this for a green campus initiative I led but one of the problems is they're manufactured in China and have a large carbon ftprint for transportation to eastern US. Also, they're expensive, probably also due to transportation costs.

Why aren't we producing these products in the US? We grow corn and potatoes here.

[happygoluckytoyou]

19. in california we discovered a way to make corn out of potatos ! !

ok....maybe not.... go rent a sense of humor

[bread_and_roses]

21. If they are made from corn or soy not that much benefit, to my way of thinking....

the demand for soy, if I recall rightly, is contributing to the destruction of the rainforest and corn ethanol, for instance, uses loads of chemical fertilizers and pesticides and is driving up the cost of corn for the poor.

Hemp, maybe - does it not grow on scrubby land and without vast lashings of chemicals?

[Dappleganger]

22. IBM just laid off my brother-in-law.

He has a wife with MS and they are dependent on their medical insurance. He was with them for 17 years and an excellent employee, but they are going to outsource his job to two contractor employees now.

[Regret My New Name]

23. Riiight.... I doubt the poor plants they are murdering don't feel it's that friendly.

[The abyss]

26. If I remember correctly

A couple of decades ago one of the largest contributors to biodegradable plastics was the USN.

Fouled props chewing threw the seas of floating junk were part and parcel to that study.

As noted above they came up with a plastic matrix held together with cornstarch. The only problem was that once the starch dissolved you got plastic dust floating around in either the atmosphere or the ocean.

Give big momma earth a few more centuries and she will find a way to totally break down the plastics.

[ejbrush]

30. Yeah, around here we call the stuff "wood".

Neat stuff, a lot of stuff now made from plastic use to be made of wood. Could be wood again. Nature's Composite.

[NickB79]

31. Now they just have to invent a few billion acres of land to grow it on

Because most of the land we already have is either being used to grow food, lumber, or preserve wildlife habitat.

Oh, and pray the plants they derive the plastics from are nitrogen-fixing, because if they aren't you'll need massive amounts of natural gas to make synthetic fertilizers. How's that for weaning us off of fossil fuels?

[LeftHander]

34. Hmmm there use to be a technology that worked well and was recycled...

It was called GLASS!!