Climate change and sustainability resources: making materials from biomass

Can the 3Rs approach combat the escalating waste problem and the climate change? Are bio-based products the solution for a sustainable future? Through this project students will learn about bioeconomy, using their STEM skills and the results of the labs activities, they try to solve some challenges: to give new life to obsolete material. They were divided into working groups to explore the problem, develop labs activities and propose their ideas.

Keratin from wool

Sheep’s wool has always been used as an agricultural product by pastoral communities, but in recent years, it went from agricultural product to waste. Shearing the flocks is an act that farmers must perform at least once a year to maintain the animal welfare, but as wool has diminished its economic power, it has become just a cost. In 2015 it has been calculated that around 200,000 tonnes of coarse wool are produced each year in Europe, the disposal of which is a problem. It is no longer possible to abandon the wool in the pastures or left to burn slowly, with the consequent release of toxic gases and carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. In recent years, to revalue the product and the market, there has been increasing academic and industrial research aimed at exploiting wool particles as textile materials, filtration adsorbents, cosmetic materials, and biomaterials.

Wool fibers consist of 95%−98% proteins (about 80%−85% keratin), lipids (0.1%), and minerals (0.5%), using chemical and mechanical methods, it can be utilized as a natural source of keratin. The natural keratin can be used to produce a variety of cosmetics, creams, shampoos, hair conditioners and biomedical products. Several methods for keratin extraction and production of hydrolyzed keratin have been proposed in the scientific literature. They vary depending on the intended uses of the obtained product, whether for cosmetic, pharmaceutical, food use.

The activity proposed to the students is to explore the wool economy and the chemical composition and to develop experimental activities to extracts  keratin from wool using a suitable extraction solution and use keratin to prepare cosmetics.

Pectine from citrus peel

Pectin is yellowish, odorless powder soluble in pure water. It is an important cell wall polysaccharide that allows primary cell wall extension and plant growth. Pectin is used for different applications in dairy, confectionary, pharmaceutical and food and the industrial application of it is increasing.

A factory producing flavor, near our school, proposed to the students the challenge to reuse the citrus peel coming from a strong extraction of essential oils. Students analysedd the composition of peel and proposed to extract pectin using HCl solution and precipitation with ethanol.

Conclusion

The proposed activities fit a broader project on the valorization of waste. These are simple experiments that fail to exhaust the extensive literature related to the use of biomass from waste material but start from a material that is known to all and easy to find.