Sustainable compostable packaging formed from all natural materials

制造业的工业化大大降低了消费者的产品成本。一个不幸的副作用是抛弃型社会，一个我们“拿-制造-处理”的线性经济。在接下来的十年里，十亿吨石油基塑料将被倾倒到垃圾填埋场，并渗入我们的海洋，其中大部分来自包装。这些塑料垃圾不仅破坏了我们的环境，还进入了我们的食物链。我们需要一种新的方法，即循环经济，在这种经济中，我们消除浪费和对有限资源的依赖。该项目将开发一系列新的包装材料，可生物降解的涂层薄膜，由可持续来源形成。然后，这些可以取代目前传统的基于化石燃料的包装。我们需要一个建立在碳水化合物而不是碳氢化合物上的经济;植物生物聚合物是一种取之不尽的可再生分子资源，我们可以从中制造材料，化学品和能源。这个跨学科的项目汇集了学术界和工业界，二村化学英国有限公司，创造了下一代可持续的，全天然的，可堆肥的包装。这个项目有可能从根本上改变如何包装生产在英国，然后在世界各地。它将通过将废物转化为包装来帮助实现更清洁的增长，减少我们对化石燃料的依赖，并且由于这里生产的材料是可堆肥的，将减少塑料废物进入环境。该项目的挑战是从天然废物源中形成具有定制膜阻隔性能的纤维素膜。我们已确定番茄叶和橙子皮为“非竞争性废物流”，目前没有焚烧或送往填埋场的天然家园。该项目将：量化和了解由Futamura生产的番茄叶薄膜的特性;确定用橙子皮衍生制剂涂覆这些薄膜对屏障和机械特性的影响;了解薄膜微观特性之间的关系（组成/取向/结构）和所得膜的宏观性质;并评估膜的可堆肥性（土壤结构、释放的化学品）。

Industrialisation of manufacturing has dramatically reduced the cost of products for consumers. An unfortunate side effect is the throw-away society, a linear economy in which we "take-make-dispose". Over the next decade a billion tonnes of oil-based plastic will be dumped into landfill and seep into our oceans, much from packaging. This plastic waste not only damages our environment, but also enters our food chain. A new approach is needed, a circular economy in which we eliminate waste and reliance on finite resources. This project will develop a new range of packaging materials, coated films that are biodegradable, formed from sustainable sources. These can then replace current conventional fossil-fuel based packaging. We need an economy built on carbohydrates not hydrocarbons; plant biopolymers are an inexhaustible renewable resource of molecules from which we can make materials, chemicals, and energy. This interdisciplinary project brings together academia with industry, Futamura Chemicals UK Ltd, to create a next generation of sustainable, all-natural, compostable packaging.This project has the potential to radically change how packaging is produced in the UK and then across the world. It will help deliver cleaner growth by transforming waste into packaging, reducing our reliance on fossil fuels, and as the materials here produced are compostable, will reduce plastic waste entering the environment. The challenge in this project is to form cellulosic films with tailored film barrier properties from natural waste sources. We have identified tomato leaf and orange peel as these are "non-competitive waste streams", with no natural home that are currently incinerated or sent to landfill. The films will need the required mechanical properties, optical properties, barrier properties and compostability.This project will: quantify and understand the properties of the films produced from tomato leaf by Futamura; determine the effect of coating these films with orange peel derived formulations on barrier and mechanical properties; understand the relationship between film microscopic properties (composition / orientation / structure) and the resultant film macroscopic properties; and assess the compostability of the films (soil structure, chemicals released).