About 734 million tons of wheat straw are produced worldwide each year. This is a huge amount of cheap
Polyurethane foams - a group of gas-filledplastics based on polyurethanes. This plastic material, also known as foam rubber, is often made from petroleum by-products and is versatile in industry. It has many applications in the construction and automotive industry as a sealant and as a thermal and acoustic insulator.
In the study, scientists have found use forwheat waste. After liquefying them, they obtained polyols. They are one of the key compounds involved in the chemical reaction that produces polyurethane foams.
Today castor oil is one of the maincandidates for creating polyurethane foam without petroleum. The problem is that this oil does not provide the required hardness and dryness when in contact with air.” The new development with wheat straw turned out to be stronger than its analogues.
At the same time as these newPolyurethane foams can have an infinite number of uses and can even be produced using other types of biomass; the team of scientists in the second stage of their research will use them in nurseries to grow plants. “Instead of watering the plant, to solve drought problems and prevent overwatering, we inject water into the foam so the plant can consume it as needed,” explained one of the paper’s authors, Esther. Rincon.
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Polyols are polyhydric alcohols with more than one hydroxyl group in their molecule.