Liquid Wood

Liquid Wood better known by the trade name Arboform is the ecofriendly replacement to Plastic. With environmental issues such as pollution, increased CO2 levels causing global warming and depletion of oil reserves, scientists have chosen to look for eco-friendly alternatives. One such alternative is liquid wood. Arboform is the trade name coined for liquid wood.

For decades plastics have reigned the commodity and durable goods market because of their utility and durability. In the 20th Century the introduction of plastics found uncontested utility in every home, industry or machinery. However today, in an eco-friendly and environmentally conscious decade, a soupy expanse of plastic covering approximately 1 million square miles of the Pacific ocean is a cause of serious concern and raises alarm.

Plastics are neither recyclable nor are they renewable. Since plastics are derived from oil reserves, the future of plastics rests on the natural oil reserves of the world which are exponentially depleted as technology advances. Off late, pthalate softeners and heavy metals used in plastics are found to be toxins both, for the environment as well as for health. Norbert Eisenreich’s group at the Fraunhofer Institute of Chemical Technology began researching a natural alternative to a material as utilitarian as plastic but more eco-friendly, since the 1900s.

Through their research and scientific pursuit they invented liquid wood. Liquid wood is a strong thermoplastic formulated from lignin, natural fibers and wax. It is non-toxic, bio-degradable and does not depend on a non-eternal resource such as petroleum. Prior to the introduction of liquid wood, bioplastics were experimented on but their manufacturing processes were found unsuited to domestic use as they had high sulfur content.

After Eisenreich’s team developed liquid wood and christened with the trade name Arboform, it was further processed by Tecnaro a German company which molded and produced it in pellet form. A finished product of Arboform can take the looks of plastic or even an object of polished wood.

Arboform is not made from felling of trees but it is manufactured from the waste products of the paper industry. The paper industry separates out the three components of wood-lignin, cellulose and hemicellulose. Lignin is not used in the manufacture of paper as it gives paper a brownish hue. Often it is used in low quality newsprint but more often than not it is separated out with a sulfite or sulfate based pulping process prior to production of high quality paper. Lignin is the part of the wood in trees that lends support.

To formulate Arboform, scientists blended lignin with natural fibers like flax, hemp or jute and mixed it with wax. The mixture heated or conditioned under high pressures resulted in a thermoplastic material-liquid wood or Arboform.

To achieve low sulfur content and water proofing capabilities, the thermoplastic was subjected to high pressure hydrolysis. This eco-friendly alternative to plastic is produced from lignin which is abundant in renewable resource, non-toxic and biodegradable. It can be manufactured on a mass scale as well as molded into any shape or form. Experiments reveal that on heating or cooling it several times , it can still be remolded, reshaped and recycled. It can be disposed off in the same manner as wood-either through incineration or decomposition. Hundred million tonnes of global petroleum delivers insurmountable amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere on combustion.

Therefore, incineration of plastics results in the formation of carbon dioxide (CO2 ) cumulatively adds up to the total atmospheric CO2 which results in global warming. It is estimated that the worldwide CO2 emissions have reached seven times higher than the amount that the biosphere can fix in the form of organic compounds in any given period of time.

Arboform when used as an alternative bioplastic, the carbon dioxide (CO2) entering the atmosphere on incineration remains unchanged. It releases only that amount of carbon dioxide that the plant had originally fixed from the environment during its growth. Thus, the carbon cycle is closed and not disrupted. Liquid wood does not require any elaborate process to change its chemical composition before disposal. In fact it can even be discarded off like wood. Tecnaro molded ‘Arboform’ has been used in the manufacture of automobile parts, pens, speaker boxes, art forms and household goods.

As a product substitute of plastic, Arboform has better thermal and mechanical properties than both, wood and plastic put together. Wood tends to split at right angles when subjected to strain but not Arboform. It is a biodegradable thermoplastic engineering material of superior quality and strength that will meet the technological demands replacing the indomitable market giant-plastic.

Concerned parents are already looking to replace plastic water bottles to protect their children from bis phenol A and phthalate toxins (chemicals used to harden plastics). In this flux of changing technology, the use of Arboform promises a more eco-friendly and a safer environment for tomorrow.