Transportable Arborform pellet
Germany is heading the charge away from petro-chemical plastics toward renewable synthetic material substitutes. As global oil stocks decrease it is difficult to understate how important these substitutes will be and how massive these industries could become. Add to that the well-publicised downsides of plastic – toxicity (some containing phthalates are even considered carcinogenic or are endocrine disruptors (link)), lack of biodegradability and waste disposal.
A research team in Fraunhofer Institute for Chemical Technology (ICT) in Pfinztal, Germany have come up with Arborform, which is coming to be more popularly (relatively speaking) known as liquid wood. This search has been ongoing since the 1990s. This has resulted in a spin-off company – Tecnaro.
The raw material used is lignin, which is a by-product of high-quality paper production. The mixture is then mixed with fibres such as hemp or flax (flax has been used similarly in bike production (Museeuw Bikes)). This means the product retains certain qualities of wood but with the benefits of injection-molded plastic.
The material needs a high-pressure environment to be molded after being transported as pellets and melted down. To be toy friendly the naturally occurring sulphur is removed from the lignin at an early stage.
As with synthetic thermoplastics, Arborform can be made into mouldings, plates or slabs on conventional plastics processing machines. Re-melting is impossible but it can be burnt as a fuel at the end of the product’s life-span or it can be broken up and used as a filler material. Arborform maintains its stability even if exposed to water or saliva.
So what does it look like? Products can resemble highly polished wood or a matt finish like plastic.
Bibliography
Tecnaro – buy yourself some Arborform products
Deutsche Welle Article
MSN Article – complete with US-centric doom-mongering which is a must for all EU led initiatives
This article was posted on
Wednesday, January 28th, 2009 at
19:01.
It is archived in Architecture, Art, Bicycles, Science and tagged future, industry, materials, plastic, Science.
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