New biodegradable polyurethane foams are developed from wheat straw
2021-01-19
(Press-News.org) Every year around 734 million tons of wheat straw are produced worldwide, a large amount of waste, which is cheap and has had no well-defined use until now. Recently, the RNM-271 Chemical Engineering and FQM-383 NANOVAL Organic Chemistry research groups at the University of Córdoba have been able to give a new use to this agricultural excess material, by using it as the foundation in order to manufacture polyurethane foams.
Also known as foam rubber, this plastic material, often manufactured from petroleum by-products, is extremely versatile within the industry and has multiple uses in the construction and automobile sectors as a sealant as well as a thermal and acoustic insulator.
The new paper, published on the cover of Polymers, and on which Chile's Advanced Polymers Research Center (CIPA) also participated, has found a new purpose for this wheat waste. After this waste is liquefied, polyols are obtained. These polyols are one of the key compounds that play a role in the chemical reaction that makes polyurethane foams.
To date, castor oil has been one of the main candidates in the race to obtain sustainable polyurethane foam that does not require petroleum. The issue, as explained by one of the main authors of the paper, Esther Rincón, is that this vegetable oil "does not offer complete hardness and dryness once exposed to air", one of the keys to proper rubber foam formation.
For this reason, the new research proposed substituting 50% of this castor oil for wheat straw, with results that offer up very similar characteristics to those generated by traditional manufacturing processes that use non-renewable compounds: "We were able to obtain very desirable parameters in the manufacturing of foam, converting 96% of the wheat used with an almost maximum performance", explains Esther Rincón. In addition, as pointed out by the researcher, they obtained higher levels of biodegradability than those reached by the products currently on the market, meaning that this material takes less time to decompose.
Use in plant nurseries
While these new polyurethane foams could have infinite applications and even be manufactured with other kinds of biomass, the research group, in the second stage of their study, will use them in plant nurseries to help with plant growth. "Instead of watering the plant, and with the aim of dealing with drought problems and preventing overwatering, we would inject the water into the foam so that the plant can consume it as needed", explains the researcher.
INFORMATION:
ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:
2021-01-19
An international consortium of scientists, initiated by Reinhard Kienberger, Professor of Laser and X-ray Physics at the Technical University of Munich (TUM), several years ago, has made significant measurements in the femtosecond range at the U.S. Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (SLAC).
However, on these miniscule timescales, it is extremely difficult to synchronize the X-ray pulse that sparks a reaction in the sample on the one hand and the laser pulse which 'observes' it on the other. This problem is called timing jitter, and it is a major hurdle in ongoing ...
2021-01-19
Researchers at Lund University in Sweden, in collaboration with colleagues in Dresden, Germany, have developed a way of combining a bone substitute and drugs to regenerate bone and heal severe fractures in the thigh or shin bone. The study, published in the research journal Science Advances, was conducted on rats, but the researchers think that the method in various combinations will soon be commonplace in clinical settings.
"The drugs and materials we used in the study for the regeneration of bone are already approved. We simply packaged them in a new combination. Therefore, there are no real obstacles to already using the method in clinical studies for certain major bone defects that are difficult to resolve in patients. But we want to ...
2021-01-19
The Messina Strait, a submarine bridge separating the island of Sicily from the Italian Peninsula, is the area with the largest marine litter density worldwide -more than a million objects per square kilometre in some parts-, as reported in a new review paper published in the journal Environmental Research Letters.
Also, over the next thirty years, the volume of rubbish in the sea could surpass three billion metric tons (Mt), as cited in the study, whose corresponding authors are the experts Miquel Canals, from the Faculty of Earth Sciences of the University of Barcelona, and Georg Hanke from the European Commission's Joint Research Centre (JRC), where ...
2021-01-19
A new study in Frontiers in Psychiatry has for the first time, demonstrated differences in the prevalence of post-traumatic stress symptoms (PTSS) in different groups of rescue workers and emergency personnel, including firefighters, police officers and psychiatric nurses. The researchers showed that the varying experiences and circumstances these workers encounter, such as handling aggressive people, working with families or dealing with deaths and suicide, are tied to varying levels of PTSS and suicidal thoughts, with emergency department staff and psychiatric nurses showing the highest levels of PTSS and suicidal thoughts out of the emergency professions studied. The findings highlight the urgent need for bespoke training and counselling services ...
2021-01-19
INSECTS The spirea aphid, Aphis spiraecola, an invasive pest, has been discovered for the first time in Denmark by University of Copenhagen researchers. The extent of its current distribution remains unknown, but in time, it could prove to be a troublesome pest for Danish apple growers.
Aphis
Whether the discovery of this aphid in Denmark is an isolated incident, or if the species has made itself at home due to a milder climate, remains unknown to the researchers. Closer investigation is needed. Photo: UCPH/Uni.Budapest
In a collaboration with colleagues at the University of Budapest, University of Copenhagen researchers have analysed and compared a number of samples of green aphids from apples around ...
2021-01-19
The psychological well-being of both men and women declined when Denmark closed down during the first wave of the coronavirus pandemic in the spring of 2020 - with women being hit the hardest. But during the second wave, it is the other way round in terms of gender: The psychological well-being of men and women is generally low, but it has fallen most in men.
This is shown in a survey conducted by Søren Dinesen Østergaard, among others. He is professor at the Department of Clinical Medicine and affiliated with the Department of Affective Disorders at Aarhus University Hospital - Psychiatry in Denmark.
The survey is the latest of three assessments of Danes' psychological well-being ...
2021-01-19
Climate researchers have found a simple but efficient way to improve estimations of ultimate global warming from complex climate models. The finding is relevant for the evaluation and comparison of climate models and thus for accurate projections of future climate change - especially beyond the year 2100. The study is published in Geophysical Research Letters by Dr. Robbin Bastiaansen and colleagues at the Institute for Marine and Atmospheric Research Utrecht, Utrecht University, The Netherlands. The work is part of the European TiPES project coordinated by the University of Copenhagen, Denmark.
Complex climate models are rarely used to simulate the effect of global warming for a given amount of CO2 beyond a couple of centuries into the future. ...
2021-01-19
A system that uses flexible, breathable magnetic skin allows people with severe quadriplegia to move around and choose their surroundings. Developed by KAUST researchers, the high-tech system relies on the user's facial expressions to accomplish a wide variety of tasks, from moving down the street to using an elevator.
There are a wide variety of assistive technologies for people with quadriplegia, but most systems are not suitable for patients with severe quadriplegia as they often rely on head or neck movements to work. For these patients, the options are limited to camera, tongue control, voice-assistant and neural detector systems. But these either offer a limited range of gestures or are not compatible with outdoor applications. Some also require invasive attachments or ...
2021-01-19
Naltrexone, used either alone or together with disulfiram or acamprosate, is associated with a decreased risk of hospitalization due to alcohol use disorder (AUD) when compared with non-use of AUD drugs, a new register-based study shows. The same associations were noticed for hospitalization due to any cause. Disulfiram use and polytherapy with two or more drugs indicated for AUD was associated with a decreased risk of hospitalization due to alcohol-related somatic causes. None of the studied medications were associated with mortality or work disability (sickness absence or disability pension). The study was published in Addiction.
Benzodiazepine use linked to harmful effects
As benzodiazepine use is common among persons with AUD, the ...
2021-01-19
Various glass materials have been essential to the development of modern civilization due to their advantageous properties. Specifically, glasses have a liquid-like disordered structure but solid-like mechanical properties. This leads to one of the central mysteries of glasses: "Why don't glasses flow like liquids?" This question is so important that it was selected by the journal Science in 2005 as one of 125 key, unanswered scientific questions, and one of 11 unsolved important physical issues.
We can hardly observe the movements of atoms at a ~0.1 nanometer length scale and a ~1 ...
LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES:
[Press-News.org] New biodegradable polyurethane foams are developed from wheat straw
