BioMatNet Item: Research Activities - United Kingdom - DEFRA Science and Research

[BioMatNet Database - Non-EC Activities]

Research Activities - United Kingdom
DEFRA Science and Research - Part 2.

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Website: www.defra.gov.uk/science/default.htm

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National Activities - UK

This ITEM summarises some of the Research Activities being supported by DEFRA in the UK

The following projects are included:

Contract	LK0807	Thermoplastic biocomposites
Contract	LK0818	Straw fibre packing
Contract	LK0819	Wheat flour foams
Contract	NF0430	Nettle growing

Development of thermoplastic biocomposites (BIOMAT)

Natural fibres offer many technical and environmental attractions as reinforcements in polymeric composites. They are of high strength and stiffness for low density materials, have low raw material and energy costs for manufacture, are free of irritation to skin, and have low abrasion giving reduced wear and hence improved life of processing equipment. Particularly important is their potential for very low environmental impact. This is especially so when grown and extracted using environmentally sensitive methods, because of their low energy requirements during manufacture, and relative ease of recycling, either by regranulation or by clean incineration with a favourable energy balance.

These benefits mean that the potential market for natural fibre reinforcement is very large. The automotive industry in particular is keen to exploit their cost, weight and environmental benefits, and would like to be able to use them in many more mechanically demanding areas. Consequently it is prepared to invest toward developing viable products. They would also be attractive in a wide variety of other industrial and domestic injection moulded goods, and the construction industry has been identified as a potential major market .

This project will address the barriers that remain over harnessing the full potential of natural fibres for reinforcing injection moulded thermoplastics. This will be achieved using several innovative physical and chemical treatments and a unique set of studies to characterise the interplay of factors affecting professing and properties at all stages from fibre extraction to component design and manufacture.

Various forms of flax and hemp fibre will be supplied by Hemcore and BioFibre (with coppiced willow processed by The BioComposites Centre, Bangor Univeristy, and material properties and processing characterisation and development will be conducted by Bangor, QINETIQ and AE1 Compounds Ltd. Injection moulding studies will be by QINETIQ and Birkby Plastics Ltd.

The processing knowledge will be used to design and manufacture a large and highly stressed automotive demonstrator component, which will be subjected by For and Vistenon to in-service tests, and running trials in a production car. The design studies and stress analysis will be by Ingenuity and Premier Engineering Solutions in collaboration with the other consortium partners.

Time-scale and Cost

From: 01/12/02 to 30/11/06
Cost: Ł545k
Funded Participants

Novel Processing of Cereal Straws for Fibre Packaging Materials

Over 67 million tonnes of packaging waste is generated annually in the EU, comprising about one third of all municipal solid waste. This has caused increasing environmental concerns, as most of the waste in UK the has ended up in landfill sites. In recent years, development of biodegradable packaging materials from renewable natural resources has received significant government support in EU countries and many national/international organisations have been established to facilitate research in this area. These include European Renewable Resource Materials Association (ERRMA), the Alternative Crops Technology Interaction Network (ACTIN) in the UK , International Biodegradable Polymers Association and Work Group (IBAW) based in Germany and Interactive European Network for Industrial Crops Application (IENICA). The UK Government-Industry Forum has recommended greater use of non-food crops, particularly for biodegradable packaging applications. Many bio-based packaging materials have been developed in order to replace oil-based synthetic polymers and to facilitate the treatment of waste by local composting instead of incorporating it as landfill. Starch and natural fibres are the front runners of renewable raw materials for producing a wide range of packaging materials in the forms of moulded objects (e.g. Mater-biTM and SolanylTM ) films/sheets (e.g. Eco Bio-SacTMand BioskaTM ) and foams (e.g. Eco-FoamsTM). To date, significant technical advances have been achieved in materials processing to provide comparable functionality to synthetic polymers. However, relatively high costs remain a constraint to the widespread exploitation of these materials, being at present 2-4 times the price of oil-based plastics.

The use of natural fibres in packaging applications is currently dominated by wood fibres. Such packaging is commonly based on paper and cardboard. These materials are compostable and can also be recycled. However, pulping effluents and finite forestland areas are still major concerns in the future development of wood fibre-based products.

Cereal straws, on the other hand, are annually renewable, low cost and abundant sources of natural fibre. The national production of wheat straw in the UK, for instance, is estimated as 5 to 6 million tonne/annum and this is produced as a residue from the primary food production activity. The tonnage of wheat straw trading is only 50,000-80,000 at about Ł25-30/tonne for baled straw , compared with starch at about Ł300-1500/tonne and synthetic polymers typically Ł600-1000/tonne. Most straw is used for animal feedstock, bedding or incorporated back into agricultural fields.

The strength of cereal straw fibres is relatively low compared to other natural fibres, such as flax and hemp. This restricts their use as effective reinforcements in high performance polymeric composites. However, for packaging applications, straw fibres have adequate strength for fibre composites, or potentially as a reinforcing phase in a wide range of starch based bio-plastics. Previously many attempts have been made to extract cellulose from cereal straws for paper making, or for partial substitution of wood fibre in fibreboard. These techniques are based on extraction of cellulose by combined thermal, mechanical and chemical treatments, followed by washing and bleaching operations to remove the non-cellulose species, during which large quantities of complex and toxic effluents are generated. In addition to the adverse environmental impact, this creates enhanced cost, through the need for further treatment of effluents produced and drying of the fibre.

Objectives

The proposed work seeks to address the two key issues that restrict the industrial utilisation and significant potential of straw fibre in moulded packaging items:

the lack of low-environmental impact processing technology for mass production of low cost quality straw fibre;
the lack of processing technology to fabricate useful fibre packaging materials from straw feedstock.

The proposed work will focus principally on wheat straw, the most abundant source of annually renewable cereal straw from UK home grown wheat. The technologies, though, should be applicable to other types of cereal fibres, which will also be evaluated in the programme.

The aim of this proposal is to address the key scientific and technical issues in the development of processing technologies for industrial production of straw fibre and its utilisation as a packaging material. It comprises three inter-related packages, each with specific objectives:

To develop a novel extrusion steam explosion (ESE) technology to establish a cost effective and low environmental impact process for mass production of finely separated and purified straw fibre, suitable for packaging applications.
To develop a new gel-moulding process for fabrication of straw fibre packaging composites and to modify existing bio-plastics with straw fibre for the purpose of property enhancement and cost reduction.
To carry out a life cycle analysis (LCA) to validate that the 'eco-profile' of the new straw based packaging is genuinely a better environmental option than current approaches.

Biodegradable foams based on wheat flour - from materials processing to modelling and design for packaging applications

This proposed work is aimed to develop processing technologies and a finite element (FE) model for foams based on wheat flour in order to provide deeper insight into the material's behaviour and thereby to assist packaging design and facilitate more widespread exploitation of the new materials to replace less environmentally friendly and less sustainable oil-based polymer foams.

The objectives are

To establish a FE model for the biodegradable foam macro-composites in order to predict the materials performance under different packaging conditions, to optimise the material structure and design of products and to generate a database for the product design.
To develop a portfolio of secondary processing techniques in order to understand the effect of processing conditions on the change of materials structure and performances, to identify the processing window, to verify the FE model by comparing the predicted and experimental measurements and to develop a range of demonstrators for case study in the applications.
To establish a design tool, incorporating the database, for selection of the materials and product design;
To demonstrate the applications of the materials and establish exploitation plan via case study.

The success of the proposed work is expected to make significant contribution to the competitiveness and sustainable development of the UK arable farming, biodegradable packaging and related industries. It will enable more widespread use of the new generation of biodegradable foam products such as:

Cushion pads directly applicable in cushion packaging of simple shaped goods (e.g. computer, Video or DVD player);
Shaped blocks for packaging of e.g. high-value wine/spirit or bottled chemicals.
High impact cushion planks or blocks suitable for packaging of heavy goods (e.g. fridge/freezer and washing machines).
Shaped cushion pads for e.g. cushioning layer between stacked goods (from circuit boards to fruits), lining in cardboard boxes (e.g. for parcel boxes) or shaped containers (e.g. for dry foods).
Thin sheets for flexible wrapping and biodegradable bags for controlled pesticides or fertiliser release in forestry or farm industry or washing powder bags.
Sandwiched composites as lightweight boards (e.g. for display, partition or sound and heat insulation).
Laminated composite for replacing lining materials (e.g. plastic bubble wrap, plastic foam sheets or fibrous fillers) in laminated envelopes (e.g. Jiffy bag type) for parcel delivery.
String or ropes for some temporary fastening applications (e.g. for loose packaging in department stores or in gardening).

Time-scale and Cost

From: 01/03/04 to 28/02/07
Cost: Ł389k
Funded Participants

Sustainable Technology In Nettle Growing - STING

This is a collaborative research project with two research partners and five full manufacturing/growing partners.

The main areas are:

the study of U. dioica physiology, physical and chemical characterisation.
Investigation of mechanical properties of the straw and how to optimally process/prepare the straw for decortication/fibre extraction by natural retting, chemical or, preferably, enzyme-based bio-preparation methods.
Studies of agronomic experiments will be used to evaluate wild UK types of Urtica dioica and compare these with clones (from earlier EC research) selected for their high fibre content and provide raw material for UK bast fibre processors.

Objective methods will be used to characterise the plant physiology and chemistry and follow the progress of experimentation into a range of mechanical and chemical (primarily enzyme-based) processes aimed at improving the ease of fibre extraction, the yield and fibre 'quality'. The potential for UK production of U. dioica as a sustainable supply of novel fibre will be investigated both fundamentally (by research base partners) and in more practical terms (by industry partners). The agronomic issues in the fibre supply chain will be assessed in practical, technical, economic and environmental impact terms.

Initially, straw from Germany will be used for experimental and industrial processing investigations. UK genetic material will be collected and characterised in terms of fundamental characteristics, including DNA analysis. UK material showing promise in terms of fibre content and quality will be multiplied in small plots.

Investigation of the process of fibre extraction will assess the impacts of different decortication techniques and secondary processing to identify optimum strategies for nettle fibre extraction in order to produce nettle fibres with appropriate characters of length, strength, fineness, dust content, etc., appropriate for yarn production.

End-user evaluation of properties, quality and performance will be undertaken by partners.

Objective

To investigate the characteristics of selected UK wild types and European high-fibre clones of U. dioica and to ascertain potential for UK fibre productiion.
To improve the understanding of U. dioica physiology to support the optimisation of U. dioica cultivation, fibre production, extraction and bio-treatments.
To investigate mechanical, chemical and bio-processing as factors which influence the properties and yield of fibre extracted from nettle straw. Techniques of physical and chemical characterisation used for other 'bast' fibres will be utilised along with novel methods for estimating the micro mechanics of fibre extraction.
To establish the principles upon which improved fibre extraction technology can be designed and to test the outcomes using laboratory and industrial process prototypes.
To investigate secondary fibre processing (to improve fibre quality for specific end uses) by bio-finishing with enzymes.
To investigate the impacts of U. dioica production on farmland biodiversity as a step towards assessing the likely environmental and economic impacts associated with expansion of nettle-fibre cropping in the UK.
To evaluate the practical outcomes using independent industrial partners

Time-scale and Cost

From: 01/05/04 to 31/10/07
Cost: Ł472k
Funded Participants

Contacts

Contact

Non-food crops / DEFRA Non-Food Crops Research / UNITED KINGDOM