Slurry of agricultural fibres and its products

Abstract

Environmental friendliness and biodegradability are important considerations of disposable materials, be it packaging or paper, in order to minimize environmental damage. The present invention relates to a method of producing environmental friendly and biodegradable products using mechanically processed agricultural fibres and rightly formulated adhesive. In particular, mechanical treatment takes place in a pressure vessel under hydrothermal conditions using superheated steam. Treated agricultural fibres are mixed with stoichemtric amount of adhesive, through vigorous agitation, a well furnished agricultural fibre slurry is obtained and ready to be fed into manufacturing process to produce, in this invention, moulded shape bodies and paper liners. Unlike synthetic resin, the said adhesive formulation is biodegradable and made of natural renewable resources. The said adhesive has self-retention property. The agricultural fibre slurry can be easily made into moulded products and paper liners using commonly available processes.

Description

[0001] The present invention relates to a method of producing environmental friendly products using hydrothermally treated agricultural fibres and a natural adhesive formulation. In particular, the hydrothermally processed agricultural fibres and the natural adhesive are thoroughly mixed to produce required aqueous slurry that is ready to produce moulded shape bodies and paper liners using relevant manufacturing processes. BACKGROUND [0002] Recent effort in developing environmental friendly and biodegradable packaging products has lead to some interesting results. Among a number of environmental friendly packaging alternatives, moulded pulp packaging, starch-based packaging and photodegradable plastic packaging materials are emerging to be commercially viable alternatives to conventional plastic packaging products. However, if we were to look at the entire cycle of manufacturing process from the production of raw materials to the manufacturing of packaging products, each of these ma...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

[0020] According to another object of the present invention, AgroBinder is self-retaining to AgroFibre and its formulation allows functional chemicals to impart sizing, grease barrier and wet strengthening properties to the finished AgroFibre products, be it moulded packaging or paper liner.

[0022] According to yet another object of the present invention, the moulded shape bodies and paper liners are manufactured using AgroFibre slurry as the moulding material. The AgroFibre slurry consists of thoroughly reacted AgroFibre, water, AgroBinder and optional functional additives. During the moulding process, the AgroFibre slurry is mechanically dewatered and thermally cured to give the required shape and mechanical properties. The weight percentage of AgroFibre in the final product is in the range of 90 to 97% with AgroBinder and functional additives taking up the rest of the composition. Another aspect of the formulation of AgroBinder allows the manufacturing of moulded AgroFibre shape bodies from low consistency AgroFibre slurry using the modified moulded pulp manufacturing process.

[0024] According to yet another aspect of the invention, the formulation of AgroBinder also makes paper-making possible from AgroFibre without going through intensive chemical pulping process, hence establishing a pollution-free paper-making approach.

Problems solved by technology

Taking moulded pulp packaging for example, paper is more biodegradable than plastics, however paper is far more polluting to the environment to manufacture, not to mention chlorinated pulp bleaching process.

Looking at business economy, moulded pulp packaging is an expensive alternative to plastic packaging, especially when virgin pulp or thoroughly processed recycled pulp is used as raw materials.

Starch-based packaging is a rapid developing alternative due to the highly machineable characteristic of starch-based materials, however, its edible nature has limited its applications.

However, market acceptance and large-scale market penetration would not take place until the photodegradability of this kind of plastic materials proves to be as claimed, and its source of plastic resin does not depend on petroleum only.

However, as an alternative to environment-damaging packaging material, it has only addressed the issue in partial.

Besides, this agro-composite formulation dictates an expensive alternative due to heavy usage of thermoplastic and starch in the formulation.

What remains challenging and yet to be addressed is how to formulate an agro-based composite containing agricultural fibres as the major component, while the binding agent and auxiliary chemicals as minor.

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