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Flubber-gasting! Plastic can grow like crops
WHAT HAVE plastics and polymers got to do with corn, potato and wheat? A lot. Now a polymer can grow like greens! The recent advances being made in plastic technology suggest so. In fact, there is news for all those who saw red when they thought of plastics.
WHAT HAVE plastics and polymers got to do with corn, potato and wheat? A lot. Now a polymer can grow like greens!
The recent advances being made in plastic technology suggest so. In fact, there is news for all those who saw red when they thought of plastics.
“Green polymers are now a possibility,” says Swati Varshney, M Tech final year student at Central Institute of Plastics Engineering and Technology (CIPET), Lucknow. In her paper on ‘Green Polymer from Renewable Sources’, Swati describes how wood, cotton, corn, wheat etc have now become a potential source of polymers.
“Cellulose is a biopolymer and so are soy protein, starch and polyesters. They have different natural sources, like wood, potato, starch, soybeans etc. The Cellulose biopolymer for instance finds natural source in wood, cotton and corn,” she said.
“Bio- based and green polymers can form the basis for a portfolio of sustainable, environmentally responsible, coefficient materials. Life cycle assessment of the bio-based, biodegradable materials often show reduced environmental impact and energy use,” she said. And Dr Sania Akhtar, chief manager, CIPET told HT Live about ‘smart or intelligent polymers.’ “Smart polymers are very fascinating polymeric materials that show distinct responses to differences and variations in the immediate surrounding environment such as thermal gradient etc,” she said.
Dr Akhtar said such polymers are called intelligent because one can actually harvest their unique properties for larger benefit. Like?
“Smart polymeric muscles!” Researchers, Dr Akhtar said, are working on smart polymers such as carbon nano-tube and other electro active polymers.
The polymers are used in the same ways as human muscles are. They have little force, but big displacement and if combined in the right way, they behave like a muscle. A research group is also working on glass devices that can change electronically from transparent to opaque.
Performing like an optical shutter, the glass is ideal for making ‘smart windows’ that could control the amount of light and heat to pass through. Optically switched glass is another possibility. With the coating of a smart polymeric material on a window (when an electric potential is applied) there is a colour change from transparent to blue. This could eliminate the need for window shades and prove to be very beneficial in reducing the energy consumption to heat or cool buildings.
