Popcorn in Your Walls?

German creatives and scientists have created a new lightweight substitute for polystyrene, made out of an unusual material: popcorn.

The popcorn kernel is an ideal natural resource for eco-friendly composite materials that can be used to produce not only insulation, flakeboard, and packaging but also furniture and children’s toys. For these products, the manufacturing industry typically uses polystyrene materials like Styrofoam, whose production, use, and disposal pollutes the environment.

The idea of using innovative materials from renewable resources to replace polystyrene originates with Prof. Dr. Alireza Kharazipour, who is member of the Faculty of Forest Sciences and Forest Ecology at the University of Göttingen.

Popcorn insulation boaffers less thermal transmittance than Styrofoam, and thanks to its acoustic absorption properties, it’s the perfect sound insulation for cinemas, studios, and theaters. Popcorn leftovers, which usually end up as organic waste, can be processed into insulation board – in the best sense of the circular economy.

Biomaterials have always been a fascinating endeavor in advances in materials science, especially considering how much waste comes from organic material such as food. Discovering how bio-waste will bond with materials, finding clean waste streams to source said bio-waste, and considering factors such as biodegradable breakdown are all possible roadblocks that can interrupt these advances, so they are usually seldom seen. However, when these materials are successfully created, they often highlight great opportunities in recycling. This project in particular, as comedically pointed out in the article, could be used in cinemas as insulation, creating an internal circular economy based on popcorn.

References

Renewable resources. (2021, July 14). Green Film Shooting. https://greenfilmshooting.net/blog/en/2021/05/05/renewable-resources/