ID :
124004
Mon, 05/24/2010 - 23:58
Auther :

MSIAN UNIVERSITY USM INVENTS ENVIRONMENTAL-FRIENDLY PLASTIC



By Kenny Teng Khoon Hock

PENANG, May 24 (Bernama) -- Malaysia's Science University, Universiti Sains
Malaysia (USM), has taken a step forward in the field of invention by producing
an environmental-friendly, biodegradable plastic from fruit wastes to replace
the non-degradable plastic, for packaging application.

School of Materials and Mineral Resources Engineering lecturer, Professor Dr
Hanafi Ismail, who headed the three-member team for the research, said the
biodegradable plastic was produced from tropical fruit wastes.

The wastes comprised banana, rambutan fruit and jackfruit skins.

Hanafi said currently, most commercial plastic was made from natural gas
and petroleum, which are non-degradable.

"Our aim is to solve the environmental problem caused by petroleum-based
polymer which is inert to the micro-organism attack and non-degradable," he told
reporters during the introduction of the products which they named Fruitplast,
here Monday.

He said the process of producing Fruitplast took about a week to turn from a
fruit waste to become a plastic film.

"We have conducted a degradation study on Fruitplast and it has proven that
under the disposal condition, it would be degraded within a period of between
three and six months," said Hanafi, adding that its manufacturing cost was 10
per cent cheaper than commercially available bio-degradable polymers.

"We are currently under the process of patenting Fruitplast before we
commercialise the product in about a year's time," he said.

Meanwhile, Associate Prof Noor Aziah Abdul Azizi from the Food Science and
Technology Division in the School of Industrial Technology, has produced
noodles made from green banana.

She said noodles, commonly made from wheat flour, was nutritionally
imbalanced as it was mainly a source of carbohydrate.

"We produce the noodles by replacing the wheat flour in noodles with green
banana flour to make it high in dietary fibres and resistant starch with natural
colour similar to that of Japanese soba noodle," she said, adding that the green
banana noodles was named Greenana noodles.

She said the Greenana noodles was a dietary option for a sector of the
population with particular caloric and glymic requirements -- diabetic and
overweight individuals.

"We are currently in discussion with a government agency to commercialise
Greenana noodles which are 10 per cent cheaper as compare to the organic
noodles," she said.

She said Greenana noodles had bagged the Special Award for Best Invention
and Silver Award for invention in Greenana noodles at the recent Korean
International Women's Invention Exposition 2010 in Seoul.
-- BERNAMA


Attachments:
untitled-[2] 6.5 k [ text/html ] Download | View
Delete & Prev | Delete & Next

X