ONODERA Soma, a first-year pre-doctoral student in the Applied Chemistry Program at the Graduate School of Science and Technology, won the Student Best Poster Award at the 33rd Annual Meeting of the Society of Packaging Science & Technology, Japan held at the Etchujima Campus of the Tokyo University of Marine Science and Technology on August 28 and 29. The presentation titled “The relationship between composition ratio of Poly(D, L-lactide-co-glycolide) membranes and gas permeation properties” was selected from among the candidate papers submitted from home and overseas.
Marine plastic waste pollution is becoming a serious issue. As a solution to this global problem, research on nature-conscious plastics is gaining momentum, and biodegradable plastics are the typical examples. Biodegradable plastics are eventually degraded to carbon dioxide and water by microorganisms. However, biodegradation in the ocean takes six months to two years, and therefore there is a need for plastics that degrade faster.
ONODERA conducted his research thinking that it would be better if plastics could be degraded without depending on microorganisms and the degraded compounds were safe for living organisms, and Poly(D, L-lactide-co-glycolide) is one such material. Poly(D, L-lactide-co-glycolide) is degraded to lactic acid and glycolic acid even in the absence of microorganisms, and both degraded products have been confirmed to be safe for humans, animals, and plants. ONODERA prepared membranes with different composition ratios of lactic acid and glycolic acid and studied their relationship to gas barrier properties, aiming for application to packaging materials.
In the examination, the proposal of the material design of marine degradable plastics and the demonstration of the design by experiments were highly evaluated.
≪Japanese version≫
