Eggo Bricks? Scientists Create Real Building Materials From Food Leftovers
By Grainger Laffan, Zenger News
On 6/14/21 at 8:00 PM EDT
Those stubborn lumps you struggle to scrape off last night s dinner plates are inspiring scientists to make new ultra-strong building materials.
Researchers in Japan have created a concrete replacement out of food scraps and the new compound can be both edible and sweet-smelling.
Associate professor Yuya Sakai at the Institute for Industrial Science at the University of Tokyo and Kota Machida, whose research was part of his graduate studies at the university, spoke about the inspiration behind using food waste for construction.
Japanese researchers from the
University of Tokyo discovered how to turn food waste into robust construction materials that retain their edible nature. Vacuum-dried, pulverized seaweed, cabbage leaves and orange, onion, pumpkin and banana peels were used to make materials that were at least as strong as concrete.
The researchers borrowed the “heat pressing” concept, which is used to make construction materials from wood powder. But instead of pulverized wood, they used pulverized food scraps as the constituent powder. They mixed the food powder with water and seasonings, then pressed the mixture into a mold. They “baked” it at a high temperature, then tested the bending strength of the resulting materials.
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IMAGE: Researchers at The University of Tokyo Institute of Industrial Science repurpose food waste to build materials with a bending strength comparable to concrete and that still taste good view more
Credit: Institute of Industrial Science, the University of Tokyo
Tokyo, Japan - Most people don t think much about the food scraps they throw away; however, investigators from the Institute of Industrial Science at The University of Tokyo have developed a new method to reduce food waste by recycling discarded fruit and vegetable scraps into robust construction materials.
Worldwide industrial and household food waste amounts to hundreds of billions of pounds per year, a large proportion of which comprises edible scraps, like fruit and vegetable peels. This unsustainable practice is both costly and environmentally unfriendly, so researchers have been searching for new ways to recycle these organic materials into useful products.