Today's plastic resins are all based on petrochemical sources. Moreover, their production involves highly toxic ingredients, such as epichlorohydrin, bisphenol-A, melamine, formaldehyde, and phosgene. Such resins are not biodegradable, and cannot be burned safely, because their combustion releases many toxic components. Even the sawdust of coated plywood and medium density fiberboard (MDF) is harmful.

Rising to this challenge, University of Amsterdam scientists have developed a range of new thermoset resins starting from 100% non-toxic renewable raw materials derived from biomass. By choosing the appropriate components and conditions for the cross linking/polymerization process, they succeeded in making a variety of bio-plastics, including rigid foams, elastic foams, and rigid and elastic plates. These new materials are fully biodegradable, non-toxic and non-hazardous. Moreover, the starting materials are cheap and readily available worldwide.

The new resins can in principle replace polyurethane and polystyrene in building and packaging applications, as well as epoxy resins in the production of plywood and MDF. The University of Amsterdam has filed European and US patent applications on the invention and is currently working on developing industrial applications and upscaling of the process.

(Source: Biodegradable and 100% renewable non-toxic plastic resins from biomass [University of Amsterdam])