Tougher plastic with 50 percent renewable content
Tuesday, March 22, 2016 - 12:40
in Physics & Chemistry
Researchers have made a better thermoplastic by replacing styrene with lignin, a brittle, rigid polymer that, with cellulose, forms the woody cell walls of plants. In doing so, they have invented a solvent-free production process that interconnects equal parts of nanoscale lignin dispersed in a synthetic rubber matrix to produce a meltable, moldable, ductile material that's at least ten times tougher than ABS, a common thermoplastic.