Biomaterial Value Proposition of Triticale

Abstract

Cereal starch and straw are particularly good candidates for the manufacturing of environmentally friendly polymer materials, especially as replacements, either fully or partially, for traditional synthetic plastic products because of their renewal ability, biodegradability, and low cost. However, the use of cereal starch for the development of bio-based plastics has generated a competition with the human food supply and also created lots of concerns. The use of triticale starch for such purpose can ease those competition and concerns. In this chapter, the development of triticale starch and straw for plastic products and their potential applications are presented. For starch, the most promising venue that can bring rapidly triticale starch into plastic market is as direct use to replace partially traditional plastics and is mainly focused in this chapter. In this case, starch is plasticized and gelatinized (so-called thermoplastic starch or TPS) prior to replace conventional plastics. TPS are also blended with other plastics at a molten stage to produce homogenous blends. All these steps can be performed in one step using conventional plastic processing equipment in order to reduce energy consumption and production cost. The triticale starch morphology, the blending and processing ability into plastic products, and the formulation and the properties of the obtained triticale TPS-based plastic products, such as crystallization structure, morphology, rheological behavior, mechanical properties, and biodegradability are quite comparable to those of other TPS-based plastics made from other starch sources. Thus, it confirms the benefits of TPS-based plastics made from triticale are equivalent with those of other food-grade TPS-based plastics.

The straw was processed using different ways to produce either fibers or particles at different sizes prior to incorporating them in commodity plastics. While the starch-based plastics are focused for short-term uses due to the biodegradable nature of starch, the straw-reinforced plastics are aimed for more durable applications with good recycling ability. Different formulations have been developed for both hydrophobic and hydrophilic plastic systems. The processing ability, the performance, and the recycling ability of the triticale straw-reinforced plastics have been proven to be comparable with those of the virgin plastics with significant cost reduction. Finally, the potential of triticale plastic products made from different plastic systems and fabricated by different processes is also envisaged for various industrial applications. This development has registered new value-added products into triticale industrial product portfolio thus enhancing the value proposition for triticale. The massive volume consumption of plastic products can rapidly and significantly increase the net usages of biomass resources based on triticale thus reinforcing the sustainable development in the agricultural and manufacturing sectors in Canada.