Ecobreves – BRAZIL: New Technology Lowers Cost of Biodegradable Plastic

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RIO DE JANEIRO, Apr 30 2012 (IPS) - The Federal University of São Carlos is developing a new technology that will lower the cost of producing biodegradable plastics. Most polymers, the chemical substances from which plastics are made, do not degrade naturally, and those that do are very costly.

The systems being developed by the university involve particles of ceramic and polymeric materials of nanometric dimensions (billionths of a meter) and offer better mechanical, optical and transport properties than conventional polymers.

“The improvement of these properties makes it possible, in the case of plastic bags, to reduce the amount of biodegradable polymers used, and thus the cost of the end product, while maintaining the capacity for more rapid degradation in comparison to traditional polymers,” professor Rosario Suman Bretas, the coordinator of the research project, told Tierramérica.

“Production is currently taking place the laboratory. It will take time to expand to an industrial scale,” she added.