Page 32 - The Peorian, Vol 3 Issue 2

32 thePeorian.com
‘REPLACE’ A BIG
WORD AT THE AG LAB
By Kate O’Hara
Present
At the USDA
National Center
for Agricultural
Utilization (NCAUR), known
locally as the Ag Lab, there is
an important word added to the
mantra of Reduce, Reuse, and
Recycle: Replace.
That word represents a large
portion of the research that is
conducted at the lab, research
that involves finding ways to
replace petroleum products with
those made from renewable
resources.
The Plant Polymer Unit
(PPL) is one of seven research
divisions at NCAUR. Polymers
are nothing new; they’ve been
around since the beginning of
time and are a part of all living
things – people, plants and
animals. Natural polymers began
to be chemically modified into
many useful materials in the
1800s. But when the advent of
World War II cut off access to
polymers from natural sources,
synthetic polymers became a
critical need.
The rest, including the use of
synthetic polymers in all manner
of plastic materials and their
growth into a mega-industry, is
history.
Researchers in the PPL unit
at NCAUR find ways to replace
the use of synthetic polymers
by developing materials from
renewable resources. Their
technologies create new market
opportunities for co-products, or
leftovers, of biofuels production
and leave reduced environmental
footprints compared with
products from non-renewable
sources.
Following are some examples
of those technologies, and a bit of
insight into the people who are
making our lives better through
the use of plant polymers.
ADHESIVES: Dr. Mila Hojilla-
Evangelista, research chemist
at NCAUR, has focused her
scientific career on the protein
components in corn, soybeans,
and alternative oilseed crops. She
developed soybean flour-based
plywood adhesive used by U.S.
manufacturers as an alternative
to a widely-used formulation
containing animal blood. She
has since expanded that work
to plywood glue that uses corn
germ protein, which also shows
strong potential to enter the
wood products market.
“Since childhood, I’ve been
interested in the sciences. My
mother was a science teacher and
I remember her specimen jars of
preserved creatures. Some were
gross – but it got me interested
in the process of experimentation
and discovery.
“What I most love about my
work is the constant learning
process and developing new
things. Getting there can be
frustrating, but when I arrive, it is
a great feeling.” ~ Mila
BIOBASED PRODUCTS: Before
new products can be made from
biobased materials, there needs
to be an understanding of how
to improve the performance and
processing of those materials.
That starts by understanding
the molecular structures and
the relationships between the
properties the materials contain,
such as starch and cellulose.
Dr. Steve Peterson, NCAUR research chemist, works to replace carbon
black with renewable agricultural byproducts and feedstocks in a process
developed at the Ag Lab.