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Plastic Made From Fruit Rivals Kevlar In Strength
jldailey618 writes "A group of scientists from Sao Paulo State University developed a way to use the nanocellulose fibers from bananas, pineapples, and other fruits to create incredibly strong, lightweight plastics. The plastic is up to four times stronger and 30 percent lighter than petroleum-based plastics, and it rivals Kevlar — the material used in bullet proof vests — in strength."
... Thought that one had my name on it.
The perp shot me with a gun made of pineapples, but luckily I was saved by my banana. (First or nearly first post is no guarantee of quality.)
Sorry, but gray text on gray background is making my eyes bleed.
Really is going to become a fruit company.
Hah.
The article says that one pound of nanocellulose can be used to produce 100 pounds of the plastic. So what else is in it? Maybe it's a journalistic error, but it would seem that that violates physical law...
First it was corn, now pineapple and bananas.... Just great, hopefully no live stock live off of these fruits.
Ring ring ring ring ring ring ring, Banana phone. (now made out of REAL bananas)
We've been able to make all sorts of materials from plant fibers for years, including plastic.
As an added bonus, many of those materials are both incredibly strong and bio-degradable. Take a look at hemp plastic -- one of the many reasons to support industrial hemp.
Required reading for internet skeptics
now Brazil can have bulletproof bandeau tops and pasties!
or a super-strength codpiece?
That small weight makes a big difference for swoop racers, but will it stop a slug from a tusken cycler rifle?
Biodegradable cellulosic based car parts? I can't wait until I leave my new car out in the rain for two weeks, and fungus starts growing on my bumpers, the same as it grows on the fallen trees next to where I park.
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the pen is mightier than the sword, the sword is mightier than the court, the court is mightier than the pen.
...And when the fighting's over you can relax with a lovely fruit salad.
The last time someone tried to compete with DuPont with a cheap and available material, they lobbied congress to ban the material, which they did.
I for one do not wish to have bananas, pineapples, or any other fruit be classified as a schedule I controlled substance.
So do we replace bio-degraded parts with new ones every week?
I, for one, welcome our new nano-nana overlords!
"Slow down, Cowboy! It has been 3 years, 7 months and 26 days since you last successfully posted a comment."
I, for one, welcome our new nano-nana overlords!
Well, I guess it's good-bye then.
Petroleum was once (partly) fruits, too, eh? It's not a bad thing if we can sidestep the tens of millions of years in between and do it without massive energies or pressures. Same thing goes for fuel, of course, but I'm not holding my breath for biofuels, yet....
We already have fruit made from plastic. So why not make plastic from fruit? That way the circle of life continues indefinitely.
There's no -1 for "I don't get it."
Is strong really the correct term to use here? People think of kevlar being strong because it's used to stop bullets, but they're really completely wrong. Sure, it's stronger than steel, but not as strong as fiberglass or carbon fiber. You use kevlar in armor because it is tough, toughness being defined by the area under the stress/strain curve. It can absorb more energy than any other material. If it's as strong as kevlar, well then there are plenty of other natural and synthetic fibers that are just as capable, and this is nothing impressive. If it's as tough as kevlar, well then there is something of significant interest here.
Kevlar is a very useful nylon-like polymer because it's tough. What the means is that it can absorb a lot of energy before it breaks. It can't hold up a lot of weight (so not strong) but if you hit it very hard it flexes instead of breaking. That is why it is useful in bullet proof vests because you want to spread the impact and absorb the energy before it gets to your body. Toughness is a function of how much things can stretch together with strength -eg. rubber with low strength and a lot of elongation can absorb a lot more energy than glass with high strength and nearly no elongation.
By volume Kevlar is nowhere near as strong as mild steel so a 10mm diameter rod of the stuff is not going to be able to suspend anywhere near as much weight as a 10mm diameter rod of mild steel. It doesn't weigh much though so you might be able to make something out of 1kg of Kevlar that can take as much load as 1kg of mild steel.
It's very strong for a plastic (think of nylon fishing line - it's like that but stronger) but plastics are not very strong materials unless you reinforce them with something that is such as glass or graphite fibre.
Bullet Proof Banana Hammocks Made Out of Bananas.
On a serious note, a lot of 'projects' seem to come out like this one, but very few ever seem to make it to commercial scale and distribution, let alone success and continued survival. "Alternative" tech never seems to sell, quite possibly because it's 'alternative', and the big boys have enough cash to make most things go away that would cut into their profits, like that pesky cold fusion.
"A Goddess rarely smiles for she is forced by others to be an island unto herself." - Zephiris
Imagine a fruitcake made from this plastic! It could contain antimatter!
IIRC, his space elevator book, The Fountains Of Paradise, mentioned superstrong ropes made of bananas.
Am I the only one thinking this sounds very Avatar like?
As if a trip to the electronics store wasn't frustrating enough. Once they start making clamshell packaging out of this, no one will ever be able to get anything open.
The only difficulty with this development is if banana and pineapple acreage is taken out of production for food and used for these plastics instead. There's a food crisis in much of the world, and it's only been exacerbated by the diversion of corn to ethanol. Bananas and pineapples aren't staples in the same way corn is, but this would still potentially mean less food to go around.
I wonder if this kind of plastic can be used for food storage and thereby avoid the PHC problem?
Of course, I meant BPA, not PHC . . . uh-oh, I'm feeling acro-ny-mic . . .
Why? CO2 basically is
I have just about lost an eye and bled out removing things from their sealed plastic packages. Now you're telling me they're going to be able to use plastic as strong as Kevlar? I give up.
Now I'll need a cutting torch to get a USB thumbdrive out of its packaging.
A bullet PROOF vest is a mythical item. Any of the body armor out there that begins to qualify as bullet proof, can hardly be considered a vest.
...but is it BPA and Phthalate free??
Or if not, can you make a blender out of it?
These frequent "big materials breakthrough" articles really should wait until they've been reviewed in some publication that knows something about the subject, like Chemical Engineering News. The paper, "Agro-waste nanocomposites for automotive applications", presented at the American Chemical Society is available. The claims there aren't as strong as the ones in the press release. Last year, the same author presented "Agro-Wastes Nanocomposites for Medical Application". Wonder what happened to that.
The trouble with many of these "new materials" is that they have some awful flaw. This one, for example, is "biodegradable". That means it rots. That's OK for packaging, but not for parts. Then there are basic questions, like will it tolerate water? Can it be made into thread, sheet, or film? Made at a reasonable cost?
There's been interest in finding useful things to make out of cellulose for the last century. There's so much agricultural waste around, and it would be nice to use it for something. Most of the ideas don't work out, but people keep trying.
Until we have to start paying $15.00 for a pound of bananas that is... $200.00 for a fruit cup is just too much!!
yay bulletproof cola bottles :D
We're having a hard time feeding the world as it is...now we want to use fruit to make plastic? This is as bad as using corn to make ethanol. I've got a better idea: how about industrial hemp, or switch-grass or something? I bet the fibers would be even stronger.
Haven't they heard about the BANANA APOCALYPSE!
Kevlar was superceded about 10 years ago with spectra, and now spectra has become antiquated by another (stronger) fiber the name of which escapes me.
I talk about strength in terms of cross sectional area because that's what strength MEANS - maximum force per unit of cross sectional area. Many people make the mistake you just did and think that kevlar, polyester, PVC, balsa wood, foam packaging etc is stronger than steel when it is not. That's why I wrote what I wrote above to try to clear up confusion like yours above.
As an example in an aircraft they use high strength steels for landing gear parts because actual strength is more important there than strength/weight ratio. In most other parts that are under less stress strength/weight ratio matters more so lighter materials are used.
Also if it's not aircraft or clothing usually "no one cares" much about the strength to weight ratio.
This reminded me of the story "Microcosmic God" by Theodore Sturgeon. The scientist James Kidder made super-rope from bananas: "He got to messing around with sisal fiber, found Out how to fuse it, and boomed the banana industry by producing a practically unbreakable cord from the stuff. You remember the popularizing demonstration he put on at Niagara, don't you? That business of running a line of the new cord from bank to bank over the rapids and suspending a ten-ton truck from the middle of it by razor edges resting on the cord? That's why ships now moor themselves with what looks like heaving line, no thicker than a lead pencil, that can be coiled on reels like garden hose."