biobased-alternatives
Biobased-alternatives are materials, chemicals, and products derived from plant sources that serve as sustainable replacements for synthetic or petroleum-based counterparts. This field is significant to plant science because it drives research into plant metabolism, secondary compounds, and biochemical pathways, revealing the full potential of plant chemistry. Understanding how to harness and optimize plant-derived compounds advances both applied research in industrial applications and fundamental knowledge of plant physiology and molecular biology.
PubMed · 2026-02-15
A two-year field study compared how quickly different plastic coatings used on fertilizers break down in soil, finding that plant-based polyurethane coatings degrade about 2.2 times faster than petroleum-based versions while producing fewer toxic byproducts, offering a more sustainable solution to reduce microplastic pollution from agricultural inputs.
Starch-based polyurethane (SPU) coatings degraded 2.2 times faster than conventional petroleum-based polyester polyurethane (PPU) over an 807-day field experiment
SPU coatings would take approximately 75 years to degrade by 90% in deeply buried soil, compared to 163 years for conventional PPU
Biobased polyurethane coatings produced fewer toxic byproducts in soil than petroleum-based PPU while exhibiting more porous microstructures and higher degrees of fragmentation