Almost every day we use plastic bags. Did you know that without due process of recycling the usual thin plastic bags that we give out dozens of stores, decomposed from 100 to 200 years, depending on the composition of the material? But perhaps in the future the problem of polluting our planet these chemical products will not occur. In fact, according to the Journal of Polymers and the Environment, scientists from the Russian University of Economics named after G. V. Plekhanov managed to create a material based on polyethylene and plant material that quickly decomposes in nature without polluting her.
The new technology will allow you to create environmentally friendly packaging materials, which will include natural waste products from various industries. Employees of REU named after G. V. Plekhanov conducted a series of experiments on the decomposition of biocomposites based on polyethylene with different vegetable fillings. As filler was used in a number of industrial wastes like husk of sunflower, straw, wheat, sawdust, and so on. When a special processing of these wastes and coupling with polymers to produce biodegradable materials having the properties of polymers. As told the head of the laboratory “advanced composite materials and technologies” of the Department of chemistry and physics REU named after G. V. Plekhanov Peter pantukhov,
“We learned how to create a new class of materials – polymer composites with vegetable fillers. Our materials will significantly reduce the level of pollution of the nature of the used package, since we are using cheap industrial waste, which range from 30 to 70 weight% of the finished composite, the value of the finished materials obtained at or even below the traditional polymers. To obtain such materials now are actively conducted worldwide. As fillers in the United States use kenaf, cotton, banana fiber, the husk of the coffee in China — bamboo, in India jute, and in Brazil the stalks of sugar cane. But the main task facing the scientists is to combine the filler with the polymer matrix so that the resulting material had high mechanical characteristics.”
Based on materials of RIA “news”
Created polyethylene, is able to quickly decompose and not pollute the nature
Vladimir Kuznetsov