Originally published February 6 2006
Plants replace petrochemicals in the manufacture of electroactive plastics
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor
Working for the Agricultural Research Service, Illinois scientists have found that electroactive polymer plastics can be made from plants, which replace the petrochemicals that were formerly used to make the plastics.
Electroactive polymers---plastics that expand or contract when stimulated by electricity---can now be made from plants rather than petrochemicals, according to Agricultural Research Service (ARS) scientists in Peoria, Ill.
Chemist Victoria Finkenstadt displays different samples of electroactive bioplastics developed in her laboratory at the National Center for Agricultural Utilization Research.
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The material is typically petroleum-based, but ARS researchers Victoria Finkenstadt and J.L. Willett showed that plant polysaccharides like starch can work just as well.
Use of the polysaccharides in certain types of conductive polymers could leapfrog some of the pitfalls associated with using petroleum feedstocks, such as U.S. reliance on foreign suppliers, according to Finkenstadt, a chemist, and Willett, a supervisory chemical engineer with ARS' National Center for Agricultural Utilization Research in Peoria.
There, in the Plant Polymer Research Unit, the scientists created biobased polymers that bend and contract slightly when pulsed with electricity.
Petroleum-based gels are now used, but Finkenstadt wants to find out whether the biobased polymers could shorten the recharging time, or hold the charge longer.
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