Plastic made from orange peel and greenhouse gas, developed at the prestigious Cornell University, in the state of New York. This is the first time that a citrus fruit has been used to create a mixture whose end result: plastic materials. This is how the BBC news site reports.
Prof. Geoffrey Coates, from the Laboratory of Chemistry and Biology at Cornell, reported in an article in the latest issue of the journal of the American Chemical Society, which is the largest scientific organization in the world, that he succeeded in developing a polymer, the basic material for creating plastics, made of citric oxide and carbon dioxide . Limonene is a carbon-based organic substance that 300 species of plants and trees produce. Among them is the orange - where it makes up 95 percent of the essential, volatile oil in its peel.
In the industry, orange peels are used, more precisely in materials that are extracted from the content, for example to create household cleaning products that include the smell of citrus fruits. But now it has turned out that it is also possible to produce new plastic materials from lemons, while combining in the production of carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gases - one of the more serious problems that harm the quality of the environment - that are emitted into the atmosphere, are trapped in it and thus create the greenhouse effect, which is the cause of the many changes in the Earth's climate.
The sources of carbon dioxide are mostly from fuel materials such as oil and coal and combustion engines that use them.
The development team said that the combination of limonene and carbon dioxide, with the help of a catalytic agent, created in the laboratory a new type of polymer with many characteristic properties of plastic that is usually based on petroleum. Quite a few biodegradable plastic products are made of it - while the new plastic may replace them and be more environmentally friendly and also better for the health of the person using it.
It is possible that in the near future we will see packaging for food, electronic products and others that are all made of plastic materials - but from now on they will be made of the same wonderful mixture that originates from the orange peel. It is possible that the creation of these materials will be cheaper than those that exist today, which are made of plastic derived from oil. The plastic products from the orange were of good quality, Prof. Coates reported.
For news at the BBC
Environmentalist - Earth
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