OleoPlast—A Versatile Biodegradable Bioplastic for Green Transition and Additive Manifacturing

The growing plastic waste crisis highlights the urgent need for sustainable alternatives, fueling the research for innovative bioplastics. Despite this demand, many bioplastics face challenges such as petroleum-based origins, costs, limited biodegradability, and suboptimal properties, which slow down their broader adoption. This study presents OleoPlast, a novel bioplastic derived from ethyl cellulose-based oleogels, as a bioderived, biodegradable thermoplastic. Made from renewable resources and waste oils, OleoPlast offers an eco-friendly, versatile alternative to conventional plastics¹.
Mechanical characterization shows exceptional customizability of OleoPlast, with a Young's modulus ranging from 2 MPa to 1.5 GPa. The material exhibits remarkable stability under harsh environmental conditions (40°C, 90% humidity, and prolonged UV exposure) while maintaining a controlled degradation profile in seawater, offering an optimal balance between durability and biodegradability. Moreover, OleoPlast exhibits outstanding recyclability, resisting up to five recycling cycles without significant loss of mechanical properties.
The adaptability of OleoPlast has been highlighted with Proof of concept in different applications, including food packaging, tissue engineering, green electronics, and eco-friendly fiber-reinforced composites. In food packaging, its oxygen and water vapor permeability performance matches that of LDPE and PLA, establishing OleoPlast as a viable option for sustainable packaging solutions. Dielectric testing shows a dielectric constant of approximately 3, enabling the successful development of an wide-band monopole antenna with circular polarization within the frequency range spanning from 1.5 GHz to 3 GHz.Biocompatibility studies on HepG2 cell lines confirm that OleoPlast is suitability for biomedical applications. Additionally, OleoPlast has been used to develop biocomposites reinforced with cotton fabric, offering further tunability in mechanical properties.
Perhaps the most remarkable feature of OleoPlast is its scalability, demonstrated by its compatibility with both large-scale and high-resolution manufacturing processes, including injection molding, compression molding, CNC milling, and 3D fused filament fabrication. This manufacturing versatility opens new possibilities for tailored applications in both research and industry, paving the way for a transition from conventional thermoplastics to sustainable alternatives.

References
1 Lamanna, L. et al. Beyond Plastic: Oleogel as gel-state biodegradable thermoplastics. Chemical Engineering Journal 498, 154988 (2024).