{"id":119174,"date":"2022-11-29T07:23:00","date_gmt":"2022-11-29T06:23:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/?p=119174"},"modified":"2022-11-24T12:46:42","modified_gmt":"2022-11-24T11:46:42","slug":"wood-based-plastic-may-enable-circular-home-furnishings-and-building-materials","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wood-based-plastic-may-enable-circular-home-furnishings-and-building-materials\/","title":{"rendered":"Wood-based plastic may enable circular home furnishings and building materials"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

<\/h2>\n\n\n\n\n\n
\"Peter
Peter Ols\u00e9n, a researcher at KTH, holds up a sample piece of a new degradable plastic from wood. \u201cThese new materials, because of their high fiber content and degradable, matrix could be a game changer for a future circular material economy,” he says. (Photo: courtesy of Peter Ols\u00e9n)<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Plastics used in home furnishings and constructions materials could be replaced with a new kind of wood-based degradable plastic with semi-structural strength. Unlike thermoplastic, the material can be broken down without harm to the environment, researchers at KTH have reported.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

One of the goals of renewable wood composite development is to make materials strong enough to replace fossil-based materials used in home construction and furnishing, such as bathroom cabinets, doors, wall-boards and countertops. And it needs to be sustainable, or circular.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cDegradability enables circularity,\u201d says\u00a0Peter Ols\u00e9n<\/strong><\/a>, a researcher at KTH Royal Institute of Technology<\/strong> in Stockholm. \u201cBy degrading the plastic, the fibers can be recycled and the chemical components from the plastic reused.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

High fiber content is the key to the strength of materials like fiberglass, but it\u2019s difficult to deliver a degradable wood composite without intensive heat damage from processes like melt-compounding.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ols\u00e9n and fellow researchers at KTH report<\/a> that they\u2019ve found a way to deliver both high fiber content and degradability.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNo one has been able to make a degradable plastic with fiber content this high before, while having good dispersion and low fiber damage,\u201d Ols\u00e9n<\/strong> says. \u201cThis enabled the material properties to be improved dramatically compared to previous attempts.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

In order to achieve higher fiber content, the researchers combined polymer chemistry with process technology similar to what is used for carbon fiber composites.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Everything is based on cheap and available raw materials, Ols\u00e9n says. The degradation products are also harmless to the environment, and can be reused\u2014enabling what Ols\u00e9n calls \u201ca fully-circular product concept.\u201d<\/p>

And it could actually save trees. \u201cIt invites recycling of wood fibers to enable reformation of the material,\u201d he says.<\/p>

But in order to move on to commercialization, Ols\u00e9n says the formula needs to be optimized. \u201cThe key to the work is that it shows a new way of how we can create degradable biocomposites with high fiber content,\u201d he says.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Their findings were reported recently in the scientific journal, Nature Communications<\/em>.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The research was supported by Swedish Foundation for Strategic Research (grant FID15-0115 TL and LAB), KAW Biocomposites project (grant 2018.0451 LAB), and funding from Formas \u2013 a Swedish Research Council for Sustainable Development (Re-Design Plastic, 2020-01696 PO).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Publication<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Highly reinforced and degradable lignocellulose biocomposites by polymerization of new polyester oligomers, Nature Communications<\/em>, DOI:\u00a010.1038\/s41467-022-33283-z<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Plastics used in home furnishings and constructions materials could be replaced with a new kind of wood-based degradable plastic with semi-structural strength. Unlike thermoplastic, the material can be broken down without harm to the environment, researchers at KTH have reported. One of the goals of renewable wood composite development is to make materials strong enough […]<\/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":"KTH researchers combined polymer chemistry with process technology similar to what is used for carbon fiber composites and got a degradable wood composite ","footnotes":""},"categories":[5572],"tags":[11270,5838,5847,12430,11785,11749,12617,13257,12238],"supplier":[6418,14696],"class_list":["post-119174","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bio-based","tag-biodegradability","tag-bioeconomy","tag-bioplastics","tag-buildingmaterial","tag-composites","tag-construction","tag-furniture","tag-lignocellulose","tag-wpc","supplier-kth-royal","supplier-the-swedish-research-council-formas"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119174","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=119174"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119174\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=119174"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=119174"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=119174"},{"taxonomy":"supplier","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/supplier?post=119174"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}