SR9223 - New Value-Added Biomaterials
from Waste Streams of Biodiesel Industries and Polylactides (PLA)
This project was funded by OMAFRA through the 2009 New Directions
& Alternative Renewable Fuels Research program.
Lead researcher
Dr. Amar Mohanty,
Dept. of Plant Agriculture and School of Engineering, University of Guelph
Objectives
The overall objective of this proposed research is the implementation
of biorefinery
concept to increase the economic viability of biodiesel industry and thus
to create new innovative green biomaterials from waste streams and undervalued/waste
coproducts that are directly and indirectly related to biodiesel industries.
Biofuel sustainability being a global need, another key goal is to create
knowledge-based discovery that can attract global biodiesel industries
in solving their important needs.
Specific Goals
The specific goals in engineering value-added biomaterials are:
- Destructurization and plasticization of undervalued and waste
oilseed meals using low cost additive like urea and crude glycerol
unlike pure glycerin.
- Crude glycerol from varying feedstock based biodiesel along
with different biodiesel industries will be analyzed for plasticization
studies.
- To discover appropriate compatibilizer in engineering high
performance new green biomaterials including biobased plastics
and biocomposites.
- PLA-tough plastic mixed matrix formulation for inclusion of
high content of oilseed meal-glycerol based material. Idea is
to find a new biomaterial of improved performance with affordable
cost.
- The targeted tough plastics are polycaprolactone,PCL/ polybutylenesuccinate,PBS
(biodegradable plastic) and a tough non-biodegradable plastic
like polyethylene, PE. (Braskem and Dow will market "green"
PE made from bioethanol in 2009 and 2011 respectively).
- Structure-property-processing co-relationship and to correlate
the experimental findings with the theoretical models
Expected benefits
The innovative and synergistic integration of melt processing, utilization
of wastes
and undervalued co-products will result in sustainable biobased plastic
and 'green' composites. The developed biomaterials are expected to substitute
petroleum-based polypropylene and polyethylene plastics and their composites
for specific uses in automotive parts and sustainable packaging. This
means a tremendous reduction in green house gas emission through use of
biomaterials and reducing our dependency on petroleum.
Results
Currently not available.
Related information
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