Penn State creates food packaging material from wood and shells
Jeffrey Catchmark had the ideal formula for an all-natural, nontoxic coating to replace plastic coatings and packaging used in the food industry, among other uses. Not only would it be cheaper than plastics but his formula would be biodegradable and nonpolluting.
But the Penn State University professor of agricultural and biological engineering in the College of Agricultural Sciences faced a problem. His formula of cellulose from wood and cotton and chitin derived from the exoskeletons of arthropods and such crustaceans as lobsters, crabs and shrimp, just wouldn’t mix. It kept separating.
Driving his car and pondering a solution, the professor was staring at the pavement ahead when he realized the solution.
He was staring at it.
“I was looking at the blacktop and remember when I was a college intern at [The Pennsylvania Department of Transportation], which was using bituminous asphalt that had to be mixed with high-shear mixtures of oil, polymers and water,” he said. “Oil and water don’t mix but if you blend them at ultra high shear, they will form a solution or emulsion.”
Read more: http://www.post-gazette.com/news/science/2017/10/24/Penn-State-Jeffrey-Catchmark-plastics-packaging/stories/201710060160
Cross-posted in the Environment & Energy Group.
