Researchers have created a material inspired by seashells to help improve the process of recycling plastics and make the resulting material more reliable.
The structures they created greatly reduced the variability of mechanical properties typically found in recycled plastic. Their product also maintained the performance of the original plastic materials.
The researchers says their bio-inspired design could help cut manufacturing costs of virgin packaging materials by nearly 50% and offer potential savings of hundreds of millions of dollars. And, because less than 10% of the 350 million tons of plastics produced each year is effectively recycled, the new approach could keep more plastic out of landfills.
Georgia Tech aerospace engineering assistant professor Christos Athanasiou led the study, which appears in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Here, Athanasiou digs into plastic recycling and the benefits of the new approach:
