Materials News

Making stronger PLAs

A

Professor Moshe Kol of Tel Aviv University's School of Chemistry says the catalysts substances initiate or sustain chemical reactions in other substances. His team has already developed several of these new catalysts and is currently expanding its activities in partnership with the University of Aachen in Germany and the University of Bath in England.

Kol is improving the process of making these "green" plastics stronger and more heat-resistant, allowing them to be used in a variety of sectors.

The new catalysts enable the polymerisation of lactide, which is the building block of a corn-based plastic. Conventional catalysts have limited control of the way in which these building blocks are assembled and they may be toxic. But Kol's catalysts can be used more safely and efficiently, making "green" plastics more commercially feasible.

"The structure of these corn-based plastics depends on several parameters. The most important is the character of the building blocks, like Lego blocks, that hold the material together," he says. The preliminary results of Prof. Kol's efforts are in, and the plastics that he and his team produce in the lab look and feel like PS, which could be used for making drinking cups, for example. Rigid and transparent, the drinking cups currently only work for liquids under 122ºF but they represent a first big step into greening plastics and the chemical industry.