The development of novel degradable biocomposites can contribute to answering the increasing global demand for sustainable materials. We present a method to obtain self-bonded biocomposite materials from cultured plant cells. Subjecting cells to a cold-compression molding process creates hierarchical biocomposites that have stiffness and strength comparable to commodity plastics, while being 100% biodegradable in soil. Introducing fillers expands the attainable functionalities, demonstrating the versatility of the proposed platform. The use of fast-growing plant cells offers the benefits of short harvest time, zero biomass waste during processing, in situ manufacturing, and no arable land requirement. The approach allows the possibility of further tuning the final material properties by genetically engineering the processed cells.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We present an approach to fabricate biological matrix composites made entirely from cultured plant cells. We utilize the cell\u2019s innate ability to synthesize nanofibrillar cell walls, which serve as the composite\u2019s fundamental building blocks. Following a controlled compression\/dehydration process, the cells arrange into lamellar structures with hierarchical features. We demonstrate that the native cell wall nanofibrils tether adjacent cells together through fibrillar interlocking and intermolecular hydrogen bonding. These interactions facilitate intercellular adhesion and eliminate the need for other binders. Our fabrication process utilizes the entire plant cell, grown in an in vitro culture; requires no harsh chemical treatments or waste-generating extraction or selection processes; and leads to bulk biocomposites that can be produced in situ and biodegrade in soil. The final mechanical properties are comparable to commodity plastics and can be further modulated by introducing filler particles.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The development of novel degradable biocomposites can contribute to answering the increasing global demand for sustainable materials. We present a method to obtain self-bonded biocomposite materials from cultured plant cells. Subjecting cells to a cold-compression molding process creates hierarchical biocomposites that have stiffness and strength comparable to commodity plastics, while being 100% biodegradable in soil. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":59,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"none","nova_meta_subtitle":"The use of fast-growing plant cells offers the benefits of short harvest time, zero biomass waste during processing, in situ manufacturing, and no arable land requirement","footnotes":""},"categories":[5572],"tags":[11270,5838,5842,10416,11785],"supplier":[2530,1643,2391],"class_list":["post-108731","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bio-based","tag-biodegradability","tag-bioeconomy","tag-biomass","tag-circulareconomy","tag-composites","supplier-california-institute-of-technology","supplier-proceedings-of-the-national-academy-of-sciences-of-the-usa-pnas","supplier-university-of-washington"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108731","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/59"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=108731"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108731\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=108731"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=108731"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=108731"},{"taxonomy":"supplier","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/supplier?post=108731"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}