Posted August 18, 2015

 

By Devin Steele

 

CHARLOTTE, N.C. – The latest research projects and developments to bring products to market using soy in making new fibers, food packaging films and thermoplastics were presented during the annual Fibers and Thermoplastics Meeting Technical Advisory Panel (TAP) here this month.

 

More than 70 attendees from 52 industry, academia and government entities heard presentations from more than a dozen speakers during the two half-day sessions. The United Soybean Board (USB) sponsored the event.

 

The purpose of the meeting is to share new information on industrial uses for soybean derivatives developed through its sponsored research and to seek input from industry representatives, according to Phil Sarnacke of OMNI International Ltd., who co-organized the event with Robina Hogan of OMNI. Soy, of course, is a natural, renewable feedstock.

 

The TAP meeting has convened for about 20 years, according to John Campen, director of ag and industrial markets for the USB and new uses program manager at SmithBucklin, St. Louis. This latest meeting had many repeat visitors as well as first-timers, he said.

 

“A lot of the folks who have attended these meetings over the years have gotten comfortable with each other and trust each other,” he said. “The interaction continues to evolve and build over time and this meeting makes it happen. And we learn from each other. Through input and interaction with the group, attendees go home and try to see if something works with their respective technology and that moves it forward.”

 

Several university researchers and representatives, government officials from Natick Army Laboratories and the U.S. Department of Agriculture and representatives of several companies made presentations.

 

Highlights

 

Dr. Christopher Thellen, materials engineer and combat feeding directorate for Natick Army Laboratories, discussed in detail some of the tests involving soy that are being conducted related to packaging for MRE (Meal Ready to Eat) bags and other uses.

 

Dr. Yiqi Yang of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, offered a compelling overview of a study evaluating the use of soy proteins as warp sizing agents. Soy protein-based sizes are an ideal substitute for polyvinyl alcohol (PVA), which is forbidden in the slashing process in Europe. But soy proteins are showing promise as researchers work through problems related to using a modified starch, he said.

 

Presenting in place of Dr. Benham Pourdeyhimi of The Nonwovens Institute, N.C. State University student Abhay Jouode provided technical research results on high-melt point soy stabilization for fibers. Among his points were the physics and challenges of fiber spinning, fiber molding for geosynthetics and the principles, equipment and processes related to yarn coating. He said PE/soy fibers are brittle due to the poor dispersion of soy particles in the PE matrix, but the use of a compatibilizer improves thermal stability of the blends but not the strength of these fibers. A PE/soy blend was used in the form of sheath in a bi-component structure where the core fiber/yarn provides strength and the PE/soy coating gives functionality, he added.

 

Later, Jouode talked about the direct formation of soy-rich nonwovens from solution. A number of trials have been conducted, and the capabilities of a scale-up system have been demonstrated, he said.

 

Elizabeth Lewis of the USDA BioPreferred Program, Durham, N.C., covered the economic impact of the bio-based products industry. Bio-based products are composed, in whole or in significant part, of biological products (excluding food, feed and fuel), she said. A bio-based federal purchasing initiative began in 2005 and has been expanded in several Farm Bills, she added. Lewis also covered the economics of the bio-based products industry, which touched 4 million jobs directly and had a $369 billion value-added impact, she said.

 

Dr. Chuanbing Tang of the Dept. of Chemistry and Biochemistry at the University of South Carolina, went over monomers and polymers for the production of thermoplastic elastomers. Research has demonstrated the possibility to convert soy oil into monomers for a scalable production, Tang said.

 

Steve Sharp, engineer and Pilot Facilities manager at The Nonwovens Institute, discussed SPI-based fibers for industrial and biomedical applications and went through several trials that have been conducted. A system to dissolve PVA with soy protein and then spin into fibers has been developed, and various PVOHs and soy proteins have been evaluated and refined, he said.

 

Keith Masavage of BioBent Polymers presented ways to accelerate commercial adoption and volume production of soy-based thermoplastics. His company is working with a select number of customers to eliminate or mitigate any technical issues and accelerate commercialization, he said.

 

Tom Fields of AkTiv Safety, manufacturer of MoorGuard® safety products, covered soy fiber for marine, safety, military and composite applications. He said the AkTiv fiber is the only fiber technology in the world that stretches without recoil. This is particularly important for the marine industry, where the MoorGuard rope fuse was created to eliminate “snap back,” the dangerous tendency of synthetic lines to fly apart and injure or kill bystanders when they part. These products are also used on cranes and other lifting devices and by the military to allow for fast, covert delivery of soldiers and materials from low altitude, he said.

 

Dr. Amod Ogale, director of the Center for Advanced Engineered Fibers and Films and Dow Chemical Professor at Clemson University, explained a project related to using carbon fibers from modified soybean oil precursors. Carbon fibers are among the highest strength reinforcing fibers available but are expensive, he said. And the vast majority of carbon fibers are derived from poly-acrylonitrile (PAN), which has known toxicity, he added. Therefore, a large market potential exists for producing carbon fibers from bio-based, sustainable and greener routes, but the major challenge is to obtain carbon fiber properties approaching or exceeding those from the synthetic PAN precursor, he pointed out.

 

Ogale later discussed continuous melt processing. The goal is to develop a continuous, melt-process for converting soy-based flour into non-food, value-added products such as fibers and nonwovens, he said. Geopolitical issues lead to significant price volatility of fossil-derived products such as crude oil and natural gas, which in turn affects prices of synthetic polymers (polyethylene, polypropylene, etc.), so materials derived from biomass are gaining importance, he said. “Green chemistry” and “green” products are being increasingly valued, he added. So a market potential exists for using soy flour as a particulate modifier in conjunction with synthetic plastics for producing fibers, nonwovens and related products, Ogale said.

 

Rick Heggs of Battelle did a deep dive into the pilot production of soy flour/acrylic acid hydrogels. He and his colleague, Herman Benecke, have been working on this project for years, and they want to prove it can be made economically, he said. A co-rotating reactive extruder is a viable method for producing soy hydrogel, and commercial soy flour can be used as a feedstock, he said.

 

Roger Crossfield of CTW Technologies, LLC, covered soy-based additives for Plylactic Acids (PLA) for fiber and films. PLA is the largest volume, bio-renewable commercial polymer, he said, adding that it is finding a home in a number of fiber, film and molding applications. But PLA also has several areas were the properties or the polymer could be significantly enhanced, he added, especially related to biodegradability and compostability, flexibility and toughness. So a project is being undertaken to identify and commercialize soy materials that provide significant enhancements in the performance properties of PLA, primarily through the use of soy protein-based materials, and promising progress has been made, he said.

 

Dr. Carlos Salas of N.C. State went over surface finishing from soybean proteins, a project started by Orlando Rojas when he was a student at N.C. State and who is now a professor there. Using soy proteins for surface modification is practical, he said, because typical wetting agents (surfactants) are expensive; some industrial applications require both the good mechanical stability of polymeric materials and high surface energy; and soy proteins are amphiphilic, i.e. they behave similar to surfactants. Researchers aim to use soy proteins as a biocompatible, biodegradable and low-cost finish for polypropylene nonwoven fabrics to acquire antibacterial/hemostatic properties for wound dressing applications, he added.

 

Dr. Tom Theyson of TensTech closed the session with an overview of polymeric surfactants and dispersants derived from functionalized soybeans. Soybean oil is an attractive source of C18 hydrophobes for surfactant structures, he said, adding that the level of unsaturation makes the surfactant products liquids or low melting solids. TensTech has carried out a USB-supported project on the use of soy protein as the hydrophilic portion of soy surfactants, and the project is moving forward, he said.