Components made using the cellulose-based composite weigh about 10 percent less than the non-cellulose part.
Brazil's Aracruz Cellulose lost 84% as demand for its pulp shrank in the face of recession.
The cellulose, which is produced in large amounts by plants, including grass stems, etc.
ENGADGET: NEC builds a better bioplastic from plant stems and cashew nut shells
To be fermented, cellulose must first be broken away from a plant stiffener called lignin.
What this has allowed them to do is make cheap simple sugars from cellulose.
OMV, an oil and gas company, Voest, a steelmaker, and Lenzing, a maker of cellulose fibre.
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The hope is that trees can be modified to make less lignin, and more cellulose.
When it comes to papermaking, long fibres of cellulose are preferable to short ones.
The powdery lignin, once separated from the cellulose, is a very useful substance in its own right.
The problem is that turning cellulose into ethanol on an industrial scale will be difficult and expensive.
Once the cellulose is exposed, its long chains of molecules must be chopped into individual sugar molecules.
There are industries, such as paper and cellulose production, where Brazil already imports and exports large amounts.
Current cellulose based plastics include large amounts of petroleum-based additives, which results in a low plant component ratio.
ENGADGET: NEC builds a better bioplastic from plant stems and cashew nut shells
Cellulose, which makes up more than 90% of the weight of the devices, is already used in implants.
You would not, it is true, want cellulose acetate butyrate on either your car or your frying pan.
Suffice to say you eat cellulose every time you eat a salad or fruit, or any other plant-derived food.
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These cellulose-based bioplastics have conventionally been utilized in stationery, toys and household goods.
ENGADGET: NEC builds a better bioplastic from plant stems and cashew nut shells
By most standards, the hope that is such first-generation fuel additives are supplanted by next-generation ones, or those produced from cellulose.
For example, food vendors in the main Olympic Park will use compostable packaging made mainly from starch and cellulose-based bio-plastics.
Mr. FOODY: So when you actually look at a cellulose ethanol facility, it doesn't take in any fossil fuels at all.
The husk, the outer covering of the barley grain, is placed in a bi-fermentor which transforms the cellulose into methane gas.
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Trees contain not only the cellulose that papermakers want, but lignin crudely, the stuff that makes a tree a tree which they don't.
However, a partnership between Ford and Weyerhauser has led to the development of plastic composites made out of cellulose instead of fiberglass.
The technique works by focusing high-powered microwaves on plant-based material, transforming the tough cellulose molecules of the plant matter into volatile gases.
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The U.S. Department of Energy contracted with two enzyme companies, Genencor and Novozymes, to try to reduce the cost of cellulose-dismantling enzymes.
An analogy: think of a pencil, where the lead in the middle is the cellulose fiber, surrounded by unwanted lignin and hemicellulose.
Switchgrass contains cellulose, the starting material that, with enough heat and the right enzymes and chemicals, can be made into ethanol fuel.
As an alternative to petroleum-based components, cellulose is the plastic's major ingredient.
ENGADGET: NEC builds a better bioplastic from plant stems and cashew nut shells
These were meals they would never dream of eating themselves, full of methyl cellulose and emulsifiers that might well poison their customers.
The cellulose from the linters is also found in cheaper brands of ice cream, where it is used to improve texture and reduce ice crystals.
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