4M Carbon Fiber announces a 15% stronger carbon fiber produced 3x faster

In a recent carbon fiber production demonstration, 4M Carbon Fiber announces that it has produced a 15% stronger carbon fiber while tripling production output using their atmospheric plasma oxidation technology..

The results offer industry-disrupting opportunities for carbon fiber manufacturers, demonstrating the ability to produce better carbon fiber while spreading capital and operating costs over three times the production capacity. 4M is exploring ways to license this technology to end users worldwide.

In collaboration with Formosa Plastics Corporation, a commercial carbon fiber producer, and the Department of Energy’s Carbon Fiber Technology Facility at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Oak Ridge, TN, 4M’s team oxidized Formosa’s precursor using the internationally-patented technology developed by 4M and ORNL. The fiber was then carbonized, surface-treated, and sized at the CFTF. The carbon fiber properties were then tested at the CFTF using industrial testing methodology. The initial trial showed that the fiber exhibits higher tensile properties than carbon fiber produced via conventional technology for that specific precursor.

4M believes that these results enhance 4M’s value proposition by showing that plasma oxidation can positively impact carbon fiber properties.

4M’s next step in the plasma oxidation commercialization process is to complete a $20 million pilot plant to produce samples requested by auto makers, trucking companies, container manufacturers, and carbon fiber producers. The pilot plant should allow 4M to operate closer to commercial scales and produce quantities large enough for carbon fiber manufacturers to make decisions about licensing the technology. The company also anticipates that this pilot plant project will best position it to support building production capacity with partners who license the technology.

Source:WWW.4MIO.COM

New Transparent Bioplastic with UV Radiation Blocking Property

New Transparent Bioplastic with UV Radiation Blocking Property Researchers at the University of Oulu's research unit of sustainable chemistry have developed a new synthetic and transparent bioplastic that protects from the sun’s ultraviolet radiation.

Biopolymer Made of HMF and Furfural The raw materials used in the biopolymer production are hydroxymethylfurfural (HMF) and furfural, which are biorefinery products derived from cellulose and hemicellulose. By chemically linking them, the researchers were able to create copolymer parts with both bisfuran and furan-like structures. The bisfuran structure of the copolymer effectively prevents UV radiation from passing through a film made from the material. In addition, the airtightness of the material is three to four times that of standard PET plastic. The material can be used in high-tech applications, such as chassis materials for printed electronics. A patent application is filed for this method. Source: University of Oulu

New Technique to Improve Properties of Carbon Nanotube-based Fibers

The Lyding Group has recently developed a technique that can be used to build carbon-nanotube-based fibers by creating chemical crosslinks. The technique improves the electrical and mechanical properties of these materials.

“Carbon nanotubes are strong and are very good at conducting heat and electricity. Therefore, these materials have wide applications and can be used as strong fibers, batteries, and transistors,” said Gang Wang, a postdoctoral research associate in the Lyding lab, which is at the Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

New Method Based on Linking Individual CNTs Together

There are many ways to build materials that have carbon-nanotube-based fibers. “Airplane wings can be made, for example, by embedding these fibers in a matrix using epoxy. The epoxy acts as a binder and holds the matrix together.” said Joseph Lyding, the Robert C. MacClinchie distinguished professor of electrical and computer engineering and a Beckman faculty member.

However, combining the tubes to make such materials can lead to a loss in important properties. “We came up with a method to bring a lot of that performance back,” Lyding said. “The method is based on linking the individual carbon nanotubes together.”

The researchers dispersed brominated hydrocarbon molecules within the nanotube matrix. When heat is applied, the bromine groups detach, and the molecules covalently bond to adjacent nanotubes.

“When you pass current though these materials, the resistance to the current is highest at the junctions where the nanotubes touch each other,” Lyding said. “As a result, heat is generated at the junctions and we use that heat to link the nanotubes together.”

The treatment is a one-time process. “Once those bonds form, the resistance at the junction drops, and the material cools off. It’s like popcorn going off —once it pops, that’s it,” Lyding said.

The researchers faced many challenges when they were trying to build these materials. “We have to find the right molecules to use and the proper conditions to make those bonds We had to try several times to find the right current and then use the resulting material to build other devices,” Wang said.

The paper is the first step in making a new class of materials. It is likely that the performance will become better because it has not been explored fully yet. The researchers are investigating how strong they can make these materials and improve their electrical conductivity and whether they can replace copper wires with materials that are 10 times lower in weight and have the same performance.
 

Source: Beckman Institute for Advanced Science & Technology

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New Compostable PLA-based Packaging for Cosmetic Products

Toxicologists have developed a new biodegradable packaging that helps cosmetics firms meet customers’ demand for environmentally friendly packaging at Heriot-Watt University.

The new packaging solves a conundrum for cosmetics firms that currently sell organic, ‘clean’ products in plastic containers made from fossil fuel products that cannot degrade and will forever remain in landfill.

PLA-based New Packaging

The new packaging is made from polylactic acid (PLA), which can be obtained from renewable resources like corn starch or sugar cane and is compostable and biodegradable.

Polylactic acid (PLA) was selected as the plastic for the new packaging, but in order to improve the performance of this plastic, and to increase the shelf life of the cosmetic product, two different materials were incorporated. 

Nano clays and rosemary extract were added as the nano clays improve the barrier properties of the product and rosemary extract acts as an antioxidant to protect the cosmetic product from degradation.

“As toxicologists, we know that even natural ingredients like rosemary can be toxic in the right dose. At Heriot-Watt we tested the toxicity of the rosemary extracts and different types of nano clays to select the least toxic candidates for the final product, to ensure it is safe for consumers”, said Dr Helinor Johnston, associate professor of toxicology at Heriot-Watt.

The BioBeauty Project

The BioBeauty project develops bio-packaging, which offers the same environmental credentials as the products it contains. The team believes the new biopackaging has huge potential in the cosmetics market.

The BioBeauty consortium comprised eight partners from five different countries: Spain, Scotland, Slovenia, the Netherlands and France. The partners are ITENE, Heriot-Watt University, Miniland, Alissi Brontë, Alan Coar, Vitiva, Martin Snijder Holding BV and ETS Bugnon. 

Risk Assessment for Potential Harmful Components

Researchers focused on assessing potential harmful impacts on the skin, but also looked at the response of target sites like the liver and immune system. A toxicological profile of the individual components was established along with the assessment of potential risk to the consumer from any migration of the packaging components of the final product. 

“We’re creating better ways to test products ethically. As part of this project, we used artificial skin to provide a more comprehensive assessment of how the packaging might react with skin,” said Johnston.

Johnston said “Brands that develop natural and organic products need packaging that aligns with their philosophy and consumer demand for more environmentally-friendly packaging that reduces waste."

Source: Heriot-Watt University

EFSA Reviews Safe Levels for Five Phthalates in Plastic FCM and Packaging

European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) has issued an update of the risk assessment of the phthalates DBP, BBP, DEHP, DINP and DIDP for use in food contact materials. EFSA reviewed the safe levels for the five phthalates in plastic FCM and evaluated whether current dietary exposure to them posed a concern for public health.

Setting a New Safe Level

EFSA experts have now set a new safe level – a group Tolerable Daily Intake (TDI) – for four of the five phthalates (DBP, BBP, DEHP and DINP) of 50 micrograms per kilogram of body weight (µg/kg bw) per day based on their effects on the reproductive system.

The TDI is an estimate of the amount of a substance that people can ingest daily during their whole life without any appreciable risk to health. The key effect on which this group-TDI is based is a reduction in testosterone in fetuses. The fifth phthalate in the assessment, DIDP, does not affect testosterone levels in fetuses, therefore we set a separate TDI of 150 µg/kg bw per day based on its effects on the liver (as in our 2005 evaluation).

The TDIs are set on a temporary basis due to uncertainties about effects other than the reproductive ones and about the contribution of plastic FCM to overall consumer exposure of phthalates. The experts have identified a need to address these uncertainties by considering the whole body of evidence.

Current Exposure to Phthalates Not a Concern for Health

The current exposure to these five phthalates from food is not a concern for public health. Dietary exposure to the group of DBP, BBP, DEHP and DINP for average consumers is 7 µg/kg bw or seven times below the safe level, while for high consumers it is 12 µg/kg bw, which is four times lower. For DIDP, the dietary exposure for high consumers is 1,500 times below the safe level.

This new assessment of the five phthalates is in line with its 2005 assessment in terms of their most sensitive effects and the individual tolerable daily intakes. The main differences concern an improved estimate of dietary exposure to phthalates and the introduction of the group-TDI for four of the phthalates to account for combined exposure to several phthalates at the same time. This is a common occurrence and confirmed by data from studies with humans, e.g. traces found in urine.

Source: EFSA

China Introduces Measures to Reduce Non-biodegradable and Disposable Plastics

It’s piled up in landfills. It clutters fields and rivers, dangles from trees, and forms flotillas of waste in the seas. China’s use of plastic bags, containers and cutlery has become one of its most stubborn and ugliest environmental blights.

Actions to Drastically Reduce Use of Disposable Plastic Items

• So the Chinese government has introduced measures to drastically cut the amount of disposable plastic items that often become a hazard and an eyesore in the country, even deep in the countryside and in the oceans.
• Among the new guidelines are bans on the import of plastic waste and the use of nonbiodegradable plastic bags in major cities by the end of this year.
• Other sources of plastic garbage will be banned in Beijing, Shanghai and wealthy coastal provinces by the end of 2022, and that rule will extend nationwide by late 2025.

Serious and Systematic Efforts

Previous efforts to reduce the use of plastic bags have faltered in China, but the government has indicated that, this time, it will be more serious and systematic in tackling the problem.

“Consumption of plastic products, especially single-use items, has been consistently rising,” said an explanation accompanying the new guidelines, which were released by the environment ministry and China’s chief industrial planning agency. “There needs to be stronger comprehensive planning and a systematic rollout to clean up plastic pollution.”

The plan is likely to be welcomed by many Chinese, who have become increasingly worried about polluted air, water, soil and natural surroundings. But it could be a hard sell for a society used to the convenience of online retailers and couriers who deliver hot meals and packages swaddled in plastic.

Although people in China generally generate less plastic waste per capita than Americans, almost three-quarters of China’s plastic waste ends up in poorly managed landfills or out in the open.

Environmental campaigners in China welcomed the effort to reduce plastic use, though some said it was not strict or detailed enough. Others raised doubts about the government’s ability to develop and promote substitutes for nonbiodegradable plastics that linger in soil, waterways and oceans for decades, even centuries.

Given the severity of China’s pollution problems, greater urgency is needed, said Chen Liwen, a founder of China Zero Waste Villages, which promotes recycling in rural areas.

“It’s certainly better than nothing,” she said, adding, “For disposable products — disposable plastic bags or many disposable food utensils — they should be outright banned.”

Tang Damin, a campaigner in Beijing for Greenpeace East Asia, said in emailed comments that while “Beijing is addressing the problem seriously and pushing reusable containers as the right solution,” the policy would be far more effective with incentives like deposit return programs.

The Chinese government appears to think that companies and consumers need time to get used to life with much less single-use plastic.

Even wealthy economies have moved gingerly to ban plastic bags. Last year, New York State approved a ban on most single-use plastic bags that is to take effect on March 1, making it only the second state after California to impose such a prohibition.

China’s plan for ending reliance on throwaway plastic sets out three phases until 2025. The restrictions start in bigger cities like Beijing and Shanghai, then move to smaller cities and towns, and lastly to villages.

By the end of the year, the guidelines say, China will ban disposable foam plastic cutlery. Shops, restaurants and markets in major cities will have to stop using nonbiodegradable plastic bags by that deadline, and restaurants and food vendors nationwide will have to stop using straws made from nonbiodegradable plastic.

China’s package delivery sector will have more time to adjust. By the end of 2022, couriers in Beijing, Shanghai and wealthy coastal provinces will have to stop using nonbiodegradable plastic packaging, tape and single-use sacks woven from plastic. By late 2025, that ban will extend nationwide.

The policy’s effects may not be immediately visible, said William Liu, a senior consultant in Shanghai for Wood Mackenzie, which advises businesses about chemicals, energy and related sectors.

“But going forward,” he said in an email, “as the ban rolls out to more cities and substitute materials gain traction, China’s polyethylene consumption will be impacted.”

One sizable obstacle — given the size of China’s consumer market, the ubiquity of plastic and the amount that ends up being dumped — is the foam plastic food containers that most restaurants use for takeout orders and that are rarely reused.

Orders sold online through Alibaba, JD.com, Meituan and other Chinese e-commerce outlets often arrive wrapped in multiple layers of plastic, apparently reflecting vendors’ fears that customers will reject dented or soiled deliveries. Chinese courier services used nearly 25 billion plastic bags for deliveries in 2018, according to an industry estimate cited by Workers’ Daily and other Chinese news outlets.

“The levels of environmental protection and recycling will really upgrade only if the entire supply chain follows through,” said Zheng Yixing, the founder of the Helihuo Environmental Technology Company in Beijing, which promotes commercial recycling.

The government said it would consider blacklisting companies that flout the plastic bans. The cooperation of the big online retail companies will be crucial, said Mr. Tang, the plastics campaigner.

Source: The New York Times

New 18-carat Lightweight Gold Based on Polymer Latex and Protein Fibers

ETH researchers have created an incredibly lightweight 18-carat gold, using a matrix of plastic in place of metallic alloy elements. Leonie van ’t Hag has set to create a new form of gold that weighs about five to ten times less than traditional 18-carat gold. 

The conventional mixture is usually three-quarters gold and one-quarter copper, with a density of about 15 g/cm3. That’s not true for this new lightweight gold, its density is just 1.7 g/cm3. And nonetheless it is still 18-carat gold. 

Light Weighting Gold Using Polymer Latex

Instead of a metal alloy element, van ’t Hag, Mezzenga and colleagues used protein fibers and a polymer latex to form a matrix in which they embedded thin discs of gold nanocrystals. In addition, the lightweight gold contains countless tiny air pockets invisible to the eye. Gold platelets and plastic melt into a material that can be easily processed mechanically.

The Process to Develop the New Gold

• They added the ingredients to water and created a dispersion.
• After adding salt to turn the dispersion into a gel, next they replaced the water in it with alcohol.
• Then they placed the alcohol gel into a pressure chamber, where high pressures and a supercritical CO2 atmosphere enables miscibility of the alcohol and the CO2 gas.
• When the pressure is released, everything turns it into a homogeneous gossamer-like aerogel.
• Heat was applied afterwards to anneal the plastic polymers, thus transforming the material and compacting into the final desired shape yet preserving the 18-carat composition.

  Adjustable Hardness and Color

  
  The researchers can even adjust the hardness of the material by changing the composition of the gold. They can also replace the latex in the matrix with other plastics, such as polypropylene. 
  
  Since polypropylene liquifies at some specific temperature, “plastic gold” made with it can mimic the gold melting process, yet at much lower temperatures. 
  
  Furthermore, the shape of the gold nanoparticle can change the material’s colour, “nanoplatelets” produce gold’s typical shimmer, while spherical nanoparticles of gold lend the material a violet hue.
  
  “As a general rule, our approach lets us create almost any kind of gold we choose, in line with the desired properties,” Mezzenga says.

  Applications in Watchmaking and Electronics

  
  Mezzenga points out that, while the plastic gold will be in demand in the manufacture of watches and jewelry, it is also suitable for chemical catalysis, electronics applications or radiation shielding. The researchers have applied for patents for both the process and the material.
  
  Mezzenga’s scientists had already made a name for themselves some time ago with the lightest gold in world – gold that weighed so little it could float atop cappuccino froth. “But the material was too unstable and couldn’t be worked. This time we set ourselves the clear goal of creating a lightweight gold that can also actually be processed and used in most of the applications where gold is used today” Mezzenga says.
  
  Source: ETH Zurich