Solutions to a sustainable future lay all around us. By using natural resources and a little bit of science, students and staff at an Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) research initiative are creating bio-based composite reinforcements for everyday products.
There are a variety of natural fibers to explore for these applications, but undergraduate research interns focused on using the humble banana tree to help create lightweight bicycle and automotive parts, as Interesting Engineering reported.
"You really wouldn't expect it when you look at a banana tree," student Brianna Greer shared with ORNL. "You just wouldn't think of it as a bicycle part."
Bio-composites are an eco-friendly alternative to synthetic materials. They are degradable, renewable, non-toxic, and commonly used in cars to reduce overall weight, which can improve fuel efficiency as a result.
It's also a massive industry, projected to grow nearly 10% and reach about $41 billion in net worth by 2025, according to a scientific paper in the National Library of Medicine.
"The idea is to basically develop their skills and their experience working with bio-based materials, additive manufacturing and digitization for sustainable manufacturing overall," according to Amber Hubbard, one of the associate staff members heading up the study.
Emma Drake, another student in the project, worked with Greer studying banana fiber, although other materials under consideration include coconut, flax, and hemp. Drake focused on the chemistry angle, using cellulose to make the fiber surface more water-resistant.
It's not the banana fruit being used for fibers but the stem or trunk of the banana plant itself. It can be cleaned, dried, and formed into fiber bundles, as the report detailed. This led them to develop a fiber-reinforced bicycle wheel.
Natural fibers are both abundant and have low harvesting costs, while synthetic alternatives can produce toxic byproducts and are difficult to recycle.
There have already been a variety of bio-based building materials tested across the globe. In the U.K., teams have worked with a fibrous sugarcane byproduct to make an environmentally friendly alternative to traditional bricks and pollution-heavy concrete.
Seaweed has been tested as a construction material because of its antibacterial, fire-resistant, and non-toxic properties, while others have begun 3D-printing coffee grounds for single-use containers as an alternative to plastics.
These endeavors are helping to shift industries towards more sustainable practices, which will improve the environment for all of us and reduce planet-warming pollution. They're also bringing a new generation of scientists into the mix.
"What's very interesting is that when the summer students come in, it's like the building has more of a buzz to it," Hubbard shared with ORNL. "It has more energy in it, and it's because you've got all these students that are coming in with a ton of passion and a ton of excitement. So it reinvigorates the project."
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