'Sugar plastic' could reduce reliance on petroleum

A new way to make plastics out of sugar could help reduce the world’s reliance on petroleum. The technique could ultimately allow industry to make plastics from high-fructose corn syrups or other plant materials.

Companies and research organisations around the world are experimenting with plant-based plastics in a bid to lower carbon dioxide emissions and reduce the use of petroleum as oil stocks decline.

Now researchers led by chemical engineer James Dumesic at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, have developed an efficient way to convert fructose into a polymer precursor.

The researchers were interested in a chemical called 5-hydroxymethylfurfural (HMF), which can easily be converted into furandicarboxylic acid (FDCA). This is similar in structure to a petroleum-based precursor for the type of plastic commonly used in plastic bottles.

A new way to make plastics out of sugar could help reduce the world’s reliance on petroleum. The technique could ultimately allow industry to make plastics from high-fructose corn syrups or other plant materials.

Companies and research organisations around the world are experimenting with plant-based plastics in a bid to lower carbon dioxide emissions and reduce the use of petroleum as oil stocks decline.

Now researchers led by chemical engineer James Dumesic at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, have developed an efficient way to convert fructose into a polymer precursor.

The researchers were interested in a chemical called 5-hydroxymethylfurfural (HMF), which can easily be converted into furandicarboxylic acid (FDCA). This is similar in structure to a petroleum-based precursor for the type of plastic commonly used in plastic bottles.

Full Article, New Scientist

Scientists Fuse Spider Silk And Silica To Create Novel New Material

Bioengineers at Tufts University, who have been delving into silk's secrets for more than a decade, have created a new fusion protein that combines the toughness of spider-silk with the intricate structure of silica. Research leader David L. Kaplan, said the resulting nanocomposite could be used in medical and industrial applications, such as growing bone tissue. "This is a novel genetic engineering strategy to design and develop new 'chimeric' materials by combining two of nature's most remarkable materials - spider silk and diatom glassy skeletons that normally are not found together," he added.

Writing in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Kaplan describes how silica provides structural support to diatoms (single-celled organisms known for their remarkable nanostructural details) while silk proteins from spiders and silkworms are more flexible, stronger and able to self-assemble into readily defined structures. The researchers were able to design and clone genetic fusions of the encoding genes for these two proteins, and then generate these genetically engineered proteins into nanocomposites at ambient temperatures. This in itself is something of a breakthrough, as very high temperatures are usually required for the synthesis of silica in the laboratory.

More impressive is the size of the spider silk-silica composite. While past tests using silica have formed silica particles with a diameter between 0.5 and 10 nanometers, the silk-glass composite has a diameter size distribution between 0.5 and 2 nanometers. Kaplan says the smaller, more uniform size will provide better control and more options for processing, delivering "important benefits for biomedical and specialty materials."

According to Kaplan, the new chimeric protein could lead to a variety of biomedical materials that restore tissue structure and function, including bone repair and regeneration. Other applications may include areas of materials science and engineering.

Source, -Science a Gogo

Strange Quarks’ Role In Proton Revealed

Shedding light on a somewhat controversial subject, physicists from the G-Zero collaboration have found that strange quarks do indeed contribute to the structure of the proton. Their findings indicate that, as previous experiments had hinted, strange quarks in the proton's quark-gluon sea contribute to a proton's properties. The G-Zero collaboration is a multi-year experimental program designed to measure, through the weak force, the strange quark contribution to proton structure.

According to physics dogma, protons, found in the nucleus of the atom, are primarily built of particles called quarks, along with particles called gluons that bind the quarks together. There are three permanent quarks in the proton that come in two "flavors": two "up" and one "down." Up and down quarks are the lightest of the possible six flavors of quarks that appear to exist in the universe. In addition to the proton's three resident quarks, the peculiar rules of quantum mechanics allow other particles to spontaneously appear from time to time. These ghostly particles usually vanish in a fraction of a second, but it was believed possible that their brief existence might influence the structure of the proton. So the G-Zero physicists set out to catch some of these ghostly particles in the act; targeting the "strange" quark, believing it would be the most likely to have a visible effect.

Doug Beck, physicist and spokesperson for the G-Zero multi-nation collaboration, explained that one way to see these strange quarks is to measure them through the weak interaction. "If we look with photons via the electromagnetic interaction, we see quarks inside the proton. And then, if we do it with the weak interaction, we see a very similar, yet distinctly different view of the quarks. And it's by comparing those pictures that we can get at the strange quark contribution," he said.

Full Article, -Science a Go Go