UK-China Agritech Challenge Zero-Waste Agricultural Mulch Films for Crops in China (ZEWAMFI)

该合作项目旨在改善中国的可持续农业，并对农业社区产生积极影响，特别是通过减少用水量和农用化学品(氮肥和杀虫剂)的使用，不断提高作物产量生产率(和相关农民的财富)，从而改善农场工人的安全。随着全球变暖的到来，预计亚洲和中东的半干旱地区降雨量将减少，因此使用这种地膜是生产可耕种粮食作物的必要手段。该项目将开发具有成本竞争力的农业地膜，用于农田作物，这种地膜在使用过程中会退化，在生产微塑料方面不会产生负面影响。中国使用农业塑料，通过保持水分、保持土壤水分、抑制杂草/鸟类损失来提高粮食作物产量和水分利用效率。它们的使用使粮食作物产量增加20%-35%，经济作物产量增加20%-60%。玉米、小麦、棉花和马铃薯产量分别提高33.7%、33.2%、26.1%和36.7%，相应的水分利用效率水平分别提高38.9%、30.2%、30.2%和37.8%。农用塑料地膜在农业中的典型应用时间只有几个月，当暴露在极端天气事件中时，如冰雹和风暴，由于物理破碎和化学老化过程，可以进一步缩短。这些产生了大量不可降解、难以回收的废物，这些废物通过焚烧排放、垃圾填埋淋洗或微塑料残留物污染环境。如果不从田间清除，塑料垃圾会积聚在环境中，当它进入食物链时，可能会对陆地和水生野生动物构成相当大的威胁。该项目专注于新型塑料薄膜，这种薄膜将保持与提高作物产量相关的好处，但将消除土地中的微塑料污染，这是农业塑料覆盖使用的一个不幸后果，因为它是土壤可降解的。海洋微塑料污染的负面影响得到了很好的描述，最近的研究表明，在反复使用塑料覆盖物并将其犁回田地的情况下，微塑料残留量从72公斤/公顷到260公斤/公顷不等。植物生长在这些水平上受到抑制，累积的塑料残留物可能会影响土壤水分、养分运输和次生盐碱化。欧盟/美国市场已经推出了可堆肥的聚酯地膜，但这些膜很昂贵，可以用于高价值的园艺生产。这个合作项目将设计出具有成本竞争力的、可用于可耕种作物(小麦、玉米)的聚合物膜，在使用过程中将是稳定的，再加上它们将被土壤微生物吃掉的情况。最初的降解将由可氧化降解的添加剂催化，这种添加剂将使材料破碎，然后，具有适当配方的特定酶/微生物将代谢剩余的物质。评估高性能农用聚合物材料性能的可信科学数据将支持对该产品的说法。提供上述产品的主要财团包括目前出口氧化生物降解树脂的Wells塑料公司，以及由学术合作伙伴中国农业科学院和班戈大学开发的专业技术公司。中国社会科学院是中国研究农业塑料的主要学术机构，班戈大学一直致力于生物塑料(用于食品)，但也有多年来收集的独特微生物集合(包括海洋和林业来源)。

This collaborative project aims at improving sustainable agriculture in China with positive impacts on farming communities,specifically a continuous increase of crop yield productivity (and associated farmer's wealth) with reduced use of water, andagrochemicals (nitrogen fertilisers, and pesticides), therefore improving farm workers safety. With the advent of GlobalWarming, semi-arid regions from Asia and the Middle East are forecasted to receive less rainfall making the use of suchfilms a necessity for the production of arable food crops.The project will develop cost competitive agricultural mulch films for arable crops that will perform during use but degradethereafter and have no negative impact in terms of producing micro-plastics.Agriculture plastics are used in China to improved grain crop yield and water use efficiency through conserving water,maintaining soil moisture, suppressing losses due to weeds/birds, increasing temperature and improving cold tolerance.Their use has led to a 20-35% increase in grain crop yield and a 20-60% increase in cash crop yield. Maize, wheat, cottonand potato yields have increased by 33.7%, 33.2%, 26.1% and 36.7%, respectively, while their corresponding water useefficiency levels have increased by 38.9%, 30.2%, 30.2% and 37.8%. The typical application time of agricultural plasticsmulches in agriculture lasts only a few months and can be reduced even further when exposed to extreme weather eventssuch as hail and storms due to physical fragmentation and chemical ageing processes. These generate significant amountsof non-degradable, hardly recyclable waste, which pollute the environment either through incineration emissions, landfillleaching or microplastic residues. If not removed from the field, plastic waste accumulates in the environment where it maypose a considerable threat to terrestrial and aquatic wildlife when taken up in the food chain.This project focuses on novel plastic films that will maintain benefits related to increased crop productivity but will eliminatemicroplastic pollution in land, an unfortunate consequence of the agri-plastic mulch use, by being soil degradable. Negativeimpacts of microplastic pollution of oceans are well described and recent research has shown that where plastic mulcheshave been used and ploughed back into fields repeatedly, microplastic residue ranges from 72 kg/ha to 260 kg/ha. Plantgrowth is inhibited at these levels, and the accumulated plastic residue may affect soil moisture, nutrient transport, andsecondary salinization.Compostable polyester mulch films have been introduced in the EU/US market, but these are expensive and can be usedin high-value horticultural production.This collaborative project will design polymeric films that will be cost-competitive and could be used in arable crops (wheat,maize) will be stable during use, coupled with an end-of-life scenarios where they will be eaten by soil micro-organisms.The initial degradation will be catalyzed by oxodegradable additives, that will fragment the material, and specific enzymes/micro-organisms with suitable formulation will then metabolize the remaining material. Credible science data to evaluatethe behaviour of high performance agricultural polymeric materials will back-up the claims made on the productsA major consortium to deliver the above include Wells Plastic, currently exporting oxo-biodegradable resins and join knowhowdeveloped by academic partners CAAS and Bangor Uni. CASS is the main academic institution in China involved ininvestigating plastics in agriculture, and Bangor University has bee working on bioplastics (for food applications) but hasalso unique collections of microorganisms collected over years (both from marine, and forestry sources).