Scientists in Japan develop plastic that dissolves in seawater within hours
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I guess that's part of the reason they're exploring coatings - something to slow down the degradation during regular usage.
Then you can just used coated cardboard
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Without checking out the details, I can say with fairly high confidence that a material that will be degraded by a sodium chloride solution will most likely also be degraded by other electrolytes as well.
However, the electrolyte-concentration in drinks is much, much lower than that in seawater. And if it can't be used for electrolyte-containing drinks, it could be used for water bottles.
Maybe we could use this stuff for umbrellas too? My major concern is what this new material is broken down into.
Maybe we could use this stuff for umbrellas too?
Not in the winter, lol.
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This sounds borderline miraculous, and I have a feeling there's bound to be a catch. I hope not, but I'm just too cynical.
The catch would be the reactor. An EVA type of plastic reactor can output more than 12 tons per hour these days.
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Let’s build a ship out of it.
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They developed plastic that desolves in seawater in hours. Well if it were that easy they should have started developing that a bit sooner and we wouldnt be in this mess.
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And are we gonna start using this on a mainstream scale?
We use plenty of biodegradable plastics. They’re not always the correct solution. You wouldn’t want an airplane biodegrading, for example.
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We use plenty of biodegradable plastics. They’re not always the correct solution. You wouldn’t want an airplane biodegrading, for example.
I’d love that actually. While I’m flying preferably
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So using this for frozen foods, or takeaway containers isn’t advised. Those are basically all sodium.
The pace at which a takeaway container degrades from the salty food may be more than slow enough for it to not matter for that use case — especially if the container uses a coating.
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Also probably gonna turn out it dissolves into smaller plastics, perfectly sized for penetrating the blood-brain-barrier.
Edit: I get it, no new technology has ever had issues with safety and efficacy uncovered after entering mass production and being discarded with reckless abandon in our environment
I apologize to the articles authors for my cynicism, it is clear from the article that nothing bad could possibly come from allowing this new plastic to dissolve in our oceans. It is nice to see plastic pollution has been definitively solved for the rest of time and we no longer have to worry about it.
Article says it dissolves into components
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Let’s build a ship out of it.
"Oil tanker spills 60,000 tons of crude into the Pacific after hull biodegrades, more at 6"
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I think that's a mod for CP2077...
Is that shorthand for the amount of Petabyte of illegal stuff Leon the rat has at home?
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We use plenty of biodegradable plastics. They’re not always the correct solution. You wouldn’t want an airplane biodegrading, for example.
they might not be even biodegradable, not unless they separated which is impossible to do
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I've seen rice sold just in the cardboard box already.
Yes, and flour comes in a paper bag. It doesn't stop manufacturers from trying to protect their product from incidental moisture contact.
A company who already packs their product in plastic is going to have a much easier time switching to something like this than changing their whole packing line out for box packing machines.
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Does it actually break down?
Or does it just melt into a cloud of microplastics? -
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What does it dissolve into? 🪿 Wait, what does it dissolve into?
️ 🪿 -
It doesn’t seem to be based on petroleum, since they’re explicitly comparing it to petroleum-based plastics…
There also are other non-petroleum based plastics that dissolve in water. This part is not new. E.g. polyvinyl alcohol is used widely.
What’s new about this one is that it specifically needs salt to dissolve and they claim it’s otherwise relatively sturdy. So maybe it could be used instead of pet bottles for drinks? Or maybe they’re not quite there yet but it’s a new step in that direction…
For anyone wondering about where, just as an example, polyvinyl is: Polyvinyl acetate (i.e. PVA) is the stuff that wood glue is typically made out of. It's also the binder used for those bird seed bells.
...It does indeed dissolve in the water. In the rain, certainly, which any owner of a bird seed bell could tell you.
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To be fair, this was originally the point of plastic. The primary point of plastic today is that it is an extremely cheap material that you can mould into pretty much any shape.
Need a bag to carry stuff? Plastic.
Packaging for toothpicks? Plastic.
Spacers inside an electric circuit? Plastic.
Packaging for clothes? Plastic.
Fake plant? Plastic.
Part of the problem is that we're using a wonder-material that lasts forever (plastic) for a bunch of mundane shit where we don't need it, because that wonder-material turns out to be the cheapest material around as well.
Yeah, fair enough. That’s a great point. I will update my opinion of this advancement.
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What does it dissolve into? 🪿 Wait, what does it dissolve into?
️ 🪿That was my first thought, a tide pod also rapidly dissolves in sea water, we shouldn't be dumping those in the ocean though.
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Let’s build a ship out of it.
And then tow it outside the environment.
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What does it dissolve into? 🪿 Wait, what does it dissolve into?
️ 🪿From the article:
Aida said the new material is as strong as petroleum-based plastics but breaks down into its original components when exposed to salt. Those components can then be further processed by naturally occurring bacteria, thereby avoiding generating microplastics that can harm aquatic life and enter the food chain.
As salt is also present in soil, a piece about five centimetres (two inches) in size disintegrates on land after over 200 hours, he added.
The material can be used like regular plastic when coated, and the team are focusing their current research on the best coating methods, Aida said. The plastic is non-toxic, non-flammable, and does not emit carbon dioxide, he added.
So I think the next thing the goose wants to know is, what's it being coated with?
