Recycling low-cost waste biomass for bioplastics, electronic equipment, power generation, storage, power transmission equipment, and other high-end additions, according to a paper by a research group that includes Brazilian scientists and international collaborators. You can create valuable products. credit: Researcher Archive
Worldwide, 118 million to 138 million tons of organic waste is generated annually, with 100 million tons of waste from food production and distribution chains. Only 25% of this organic waste is collected and recycled. The remaining 75% are simply discarded, which represents a huge loss of potential resources and enormous damage to the environment.
Turning waste into resources (or, in the latest jargon, “turning waste into cash”) is one of the driving forces of the circular economy. If the waste comes from biomass, it is part of the circulating bioeconomy. this is the subject advanced Materials,
“Our group looks at different types of waste and residues as follows: Raw Materials for more than 10 years. We critically reviewed the literature and placed state-of-the-art in strategies for converting agricultural food loss and waste into bioplastic and advanced materials. We looked for an argument for not doing so, but found nothing. “It’s a victory,” said lead author Caio Gomide Otoni. Mr. Otoni of San Carlos (DEMA-UFSCar) in the state of So Paulo, Brazil. Professor of Materials Engineering at Federal University and the creator of a group called Materials.
For example, as an alternative to simpler and more environmentally harmful recycling of agro-industrial waste such as cattle feed, this study found that habitually discarded or underutilized biomass can be used in bioplastics. Is. It has been shown to serve as a low cost raw material for advanced materials in a variety of high value added equipment.
Applications range from multifunctional packages with anti-virus, anti-bacterial and anti-oxidant properties to flexible electronics, biomedical equipment, power generation, storage and transmission equipment, sensors, insulation and soundproofing, cosmetics and more.
“The link between food materials and energy is highly relevant to the sound-cycle bioeconomy. We decompose agricultural food waste and convert the results into monomeric, polymeric and colloidal building blocks for synthesis. The final author of the Advanced Materials article, Daniel Lemos Correa, said: Professor of Chemistry and Biotechnology at UFSCar.
Converting food loss and waste into industrial “green stuff”, as shown in the European Green Deal, is a new policy option in most developed countries. The European commissioner on the program said, “The recycling bioeconomy maximizes the use of shore and residues from agriculture, food processing and forest-based industries and minimizes the amount of waste sent to landfills.” The official website of the association states.
The article by Ottoni et al. If the stratosphere is considered a boundary, we argue that there is nothing to “throw away”. Converting waste into useful resources is a reasonable alternative to covering the earth with waste.
“The complex and non-uniform composition of biomass from food loss and waste poses technical and economic challenges,” Ottoni said. “We need to work on what we can call” Resistance to Biomass Deconstruction. “Another negative effect is seasonality of agricultural production. Some types of waste are abundant at certain times and very few at other times. Even though they are available, their composition usually fluctuates. But the main obstacle to large-scale upcycling [creatively recycling materials into new products with more environmental value] It is political in nature. We are hopeful that startups and highly innovative companies can overcome these barriers and take this process forward. ,
As the article suggests, there are technical routes to do this. The author has already mastered them on a laboratory scale, and in some cases on a semi-pilot or pilot scale. LNNA-EMBRAPA co-author and researcher Henriette Monteiro Cordeiro de Azelde said:
In the image at the top of this page, LNNA shows the potential of converting food waste into bioplastic, material obtained from the minimal treatment of carrots on a semi-pilot scale.
Researchers also produce antibacterial foams from sugarcane bagasse, packages containing chitin extracted from the exoskeletons of crustaceans and insects, and emulsion-stabilized particles that can be applied in the production of pharmaceuticals, cosmetics and paints. did.
As you can see, this study shows a strong link to the economy of countries such as Brazil, which is the largest producer of sugarcane and oranges in the world and a major producer of many other food crops. Remember also that very important causes of food loss and wastage are related to fruits and vegetables. About a third of the total output is lost from one end of the chain to the other.
“Most food loss and waste consists of high levels of vitamins, minerals, fiber and protein, all of which can ideally be returned to food,” Ottoni said. I am “But most of them are classified as unsuitable and rejected on the basis of microbiological and sensory criteria. Therefore, waste is a useful material with potential applications in chemical platforms and high value-added equipment. option to convert. Food waste, food producers are really interested in assessing these trends. ,
One example is the edible bioplastic developed by Luiz Henrique Capparelli Matoso, one of the leaders in this research line, at LNNA-EMBRAPA. Research is done in a network and dozens of researchers contribute in this particular field. Another co-author of this article is Bruno Matos, a researcher at Aalto University in Finland. Marco Beaumont is a researcher at the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences (BOKU) in Vienna, Austria. Orlando Rojas, director of the Bio-Production Institute at the University of British Columbia, Canada.
According to Matos, “Waste biomass is similar to biomass from pure, less processed raw materials such as cotton and pulp and paper. However, waste contains some other residual molecules, such as pectin and lignin, which provide a palette of larger properties.” which can be investigated to introduce functionality into bioplastics.”
Produce kerosene from bio-based sidestreams
for more information:
Cao G. Ottoni et al, The Food-Materials Nexus: Next Generation Bioplastics and Advanced Materials from Agri-Food Residues, advanced Materials (2021). DOI: 10.1002/adma.202102520
Citation: How to convert waste into materials for advanced industries according to the survey (December 8, 2021) can be found at https://phys.org/news/2021-12-materials-advanced-industries.html to 2021 . on 8 December 2014.
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