A new choice of biodegradable tableware!

▶ Yu Shuhong, academician team of the University of Science and Technology of China, reported a disposable biodegradable tableware with excellent mechanical and thermal properties made of food-grade safety sargassum cellulose nanofiber (SCNF).

At present, the global plastic production has exceeded 368 million tons, of which disposable plastic products account for about 40%. These plastic products, especially materials such as disposable packaging and disposable tableware, are facing problems such as large total consumption, serious waste and difficult recovery. At the same time, widely used disposable plastic tableware is usually buried or directly discarded into the natural environment after use. A large number of studies show that plastic will release micro-plastics during daily use and degradation, which will further pose a potential threat to the environment and human health. Therefore, it is imperative to develop high-performance structural materials with excellent mechanical strength and heat resistance without releasing micro-plastics.

Recently, Yu Shuhong, an academician of the University of Science and Technology of China, reported on a high-performance structural material with excellent mechanical and thermal properties made of food-grade and safe Sargassum cellulose nanofibers (SCNF). Relevant achievements were published in Advanced Materials (Adv. Material. 2022, DOI: 10.1002/adma. 202208098) with the title of "Ultrastrong, Thermally Stable, and Food-Safe Seaweed-Based Structural Material for Tableware". The first author of the thesis is Li Dehan, a doctoral student, Han Zimeng, and He Qian, a postgraduate student. The corresponding authors are Guan Qingfang, an associate researcher, and Professor Yu Shuhong.

First of all, researchers developed an efficient and low energy consumption method to extract a food safety SCNF from the industrial waste of Sargassum under mild reaction conditions. Then, the SCNF hydrogel is formed after Ca2+crosslinking, and the SCNF hydrogel is prepared into Sargassum cellulosic based structural material (SCNSM) with high strength (283 MPa) and high thermal stability (>160 ℃) through a top-down method. Compared with most commercial plastics, this structural material has higher hardness, and can also dissipate energy by destroying and restructuring the reversible hydrogen bond interaction network between nanofibers, thus achieving the balance of strength, modulus, toughness and thermal stability. At the same time, the structural material also has good processability and food safety, and can be processed into different shapes of cutlery knives and forks. In addition, this structural material can also be modified by polylactic acid and curcumin to obtain better waterproof and antibacterial properties. The overall performance of tableware based on this structural material is better than that of commercial plastic, wood-based and polylactic acid-based tableware, which shows the potential to replace these products in this field.

This work is supported by the National Natural Science Foundation project, the National Key R&D Plan project, the China University Collaborative Innovation Plan, the major science and technology projects in Anhui Province, the special funds for the basic scientific research business expenses of the central university, and the key R&D plan projects in Anhui Province.