Page 66 - Plastics News March 2020

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Australian teenager ’s genius invention to replace plastic

n Ausralian teenager talks to companies and manufacturers and the response
Ahas come up with is looking positive," she said. The Adelaide teen said the
an innovative solution plastic could be used for all sorts of packaging because
t o plast ic wast e. it was transparent, flexible, durable and insoluble."It
Angelina Arora, 17, has could also be used as an agricultural mulch as it releases
used prawn shells to nitrogen into the soil, which is really beneficial for plant
create plastic that can growth, health and immunity," she said.Angelina developed
decompose in landfill the product by mixing an element from prawn shell
over an average of just with a protein from spider web to create a plastic that
33 days. Her invention decomposed 1.5 million times faster than conventional
has earned her a BHP plastics. The teenager, who is a medicine student, is
Science and Engineering currently testing the product to see if it could also be used
Award and last year she for medical packaging. The idea for her compostable plastic
was named the Australian Geographic Society's Young came one night during dinner."I was then having dinner one
Conservationist of the Year.She is now in talks with night after a long, hard day in the lab and noticed prawn
supermarkets to use her products. "I'm still finalising the shells look like plastic, I thought to myself 'what makes
legal aspects like patenting for example, however I am them look like plastic?' and then as any scientist does, I
at the stage where I have produced a final prototype and went straight to the lab and started researching. "That
would be ready to manufacture the plastic to distribute was when I realised that that dinner could have been my
it commercially," she said.The plastic is not expensive to Eureka moment."Angelina was motivated to develop the
manufacture, unlike other biodegradable materials, and plastic product because she said she wanted to dedicate
can be put towards a variety of uses."I am currently in her life to making a difference to others.

A process that could boost plastics recycling

esearchers from the University of Houston have Angewandte Chemie. Co-authors include co-corresponding
Rreported a new method of producing polyolefins -- author Glen R. Jones, a post-doctoral researcher with
made from hydrocarbons and the most common building the Welch-UH Center, and first author Hatice E. Basburg
block of plastics -- Alhan, a graduate student at UH. The new method allows
structured to address branching to be modulated using a palladium catalyst
one of the biggest with varying amounts of added aluminum chloride, which
stumbling blocks to functioned as a Lewis acid; the aluminum chloride -- an
plastics recycling. The abundant and inexpensive substance -- can be added at
process also would allow different points in the process, allowing the resulting
plastics to be produced polyolefin to contain differing branching properties.The
from food oils and other new process could address two growing issues faced by
natural substances. Eva plastics producers -- how to dispose of plastic waste in
Harth, director of the an environmentally friendly way, and how to reduce the
Welch-UH Center for use of oil and natural gas by instead using food oils and
Excellence in Polymer other natural substances. The process will work with a
Chemistry, said the process addresses a long-standing need variety of molecules to produce a polymer, Harth said,
for industrial plastics producers, without requiring a new suggesting that the concept provides a new platform to
catalyst or expensive additives. "It's a very simple process," produce plastics.And that platform, she said, could lend
she said. Harth is a corresponding author for a paper itself to producing a variety of functional plastics from
describing the discovery, published in the German journal natural oils and other molecular sources.

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