So we are beginning to see plant based fibers and plant based foams in the markeplace … anyone have any insight on plant based thermosetting resins yet? After a google search, it appears that this is currently being done. Anything available for the public???
Parts of epoxies are already but the lions share is still based on fossilized hydrocarbons. Technically all oil is is plant life and oil can be made from current plant life. It’s just expensive to do so and pumping out of the ground, for now, is cheaper. For all those worried about running out of oil, all this will eventually be made by man and the whole pumping and drilling will be a moot point. May be a hunderd years but technology has a way of providing when the need is there.
How long does it take a balsa tree for growing???
Yep, there’s a company in Cornwall called suscomp (www.suscomp.com).I was tempted by making a ‘eco board’ but was told by homeblown and others that at the moment it’s not really usable for light surfboards as is quite soft so needs a heavy glass job, I’ve a friend with a noserider made from it. It’s definitely the future though, hopefully a few years down the line It’ll be a viable alternative.
all this talk of plant based resins…
gotta remember, that resins are component based; they all need to have some chemical modification of the raw material to get them to a polymerizable state.
the plant based polyols being used in “green” foam are still turned in to urethanes; they are being reacted with isocyanates.
the potential utility of these same polyols in other applications, such as epoxies will also demand chemical modification of the raw materials.
the “plant based” polyunsaturated resins will rely on long chain fatty acids with multiple unsaturation sites and will work in a similar manner to current iso and ortho resins; they will also likely require inclusion of reactive diluents (with the current preferred component being styrene) and use of initiators (MEKP, or BPO or other UV based initiators and the like). If they can be used without the reactive diluents and petroleum based initiators, then it’s a step forward, but from what I’ve seen, the inherent molecular structure is not likely to ever be able to achieve the current physical characteristics the end products demand, without blending and/or chemical modification of the feedstock.
if mother nature made thermoset resins we’d live in a plastic world. I’m not saying that the work being done in this area is futile, by any stretch, and it’s definitely interesting, but using a plant sourced feedstock does not necessarily make a product any more “green”. The data for emissions during manufacture, by-products of the manufacturing process and their disposal is usually MIA. Compare the “green” products to the existing numbers for traditional products and it’ll be pretty obvious whether there’s any progress being made. I ain’t drinking the kool-aid until the so called “environmentally sensitive” give the whole picture when they state their case…
reduce, re-use, recycle is still the greatest mantra. Use the least toxic supplies available that will give you a durable product with an excellent lifespan. Plan your work for minimal waste of materials and use of disposables. You’ll be doing the best you can.
I know weight would be an issue…but what about artificial speeding up of the hardening process of sap to amber…instead of resin…its natural, no added petroleum based anything…?
there seems like a lot of progress but still not much available for the public. ive been searching far and wide for the past few years and have heard from heaps of people making or testing them but only a handfull actually selling them. SUSCOMP is good but like they said its a bit softer. If you glass it right and take a lot of care, it works.
I contacted a brazilian company some time ago who had a rep in Australia. They had a full on website 6 months ago and i had a lengthy converstaion with the guy. they are making a 100% castor oil PU expanding foam and PE resin. According to him it was as good and in a lot of cases better than traditional Pe resin. He said castor oil was the only plant at the moment that could make a 100% plant based resin. they werent selling it here yet and he mentioned something along the lines of it was being tested in a surfboard factory in Thailand and they had signed a deal with them not to sell it until after the testing period…funny that the website isnt up anymore. it was www.bioresin.com.au
ive recently found a few other suppliers, none of which have any experience or intention to work in the surf industry. im using a 70% plant based epoxy at the moment. the other 30% is non toxic polycarbonic acids. it has no voc’s at all. its a bit trickier to work with, curing takes 24-36hrs at 20 degrees celsius, but it definitely works. it also was from a plant that was not grown for food.
i think its viable. the technology is emerging. oil prices and toxicity concerns could push things along.
At this point it’s not a matter of which material is the greenest. The material that produces the best, most durable product with the least waste and least emissions, is the greenest.
We’ve tested some soy based epoxy and it was fine. But what makes this a better resin than one based of plant life that lived eons ago. What makes that “greener.” Actually it isn’t greener, it’s just sustainable, that’s the only difference. The product itself is the same.
None of this chemistry will likely happen in the open market until we run short of oil or at least until oil is more expensive. It’s still the cheapest source. Resins can be done with sustainable chemicals now but in reality no one wants to pay more for the same thing. And since oil is essentially just organic material (ancient plant life) what’s the difference? The only difference is oil’s finite … and way to valuable to burn … and 95% of it is being burned. It’s being used for energy and we should already be off the stuff for that purpose, but we’ve got a long way to go there … lets face it, even at $100 a barrel it’s CHEAP! Face the facts, man is still obsessed with fire. So , we’re idiots.
For what it’s worth, in our shop our focus was always on these three:
longevity of product
least waste
lowest emissions
These are what it means to be green. The rest is pretty much BS.
i agree oil is cheap and effective.
i dont agree that people aren’t willing to pay more for plant based resins. most people wont want to, just like most people dont want to pay more for a hybrid car, but there is still a demand. i see it everyday. people do want to buy and use products that are sustainable.
the main reason i am interested in the stuff is that its non toxic and sustainable.
its cool to see that you can actually buy a plant based resin! although it seems it still in the r&d phase…
it is funny how much hype is surrounding the ‘green’ movement and some ‘green’ products may be no less harmful to the environment due to the process of making the product. you have to start somewhere though! and despite all the gimmicks - it is getting people thinking about alternate ways of doing things - paving the way for future breakthroughs!
Another way to look at “green” is how many living creatures/natural cycles is it killing, because essentially everything comes from the earth, and everything goes back into the earth…but if it’s inadvertantly killing things or altering natural processes that would normally be fine (ie North Pacific Gyre) in any period of time it’s probably bad. Figuring out ways to reuse, recycle, and reprocess the stuff when we’re done with it is pretty crucial though. (ie Surfboards)
So sad, but so true…
Whatever eventually replaces oil for energy will never be broadly used until we, for all intents and purposes, “run out” of oil. I consider myself an environmentalist, but also a realist, and I know that there’s a direct relationship between how much a country cares about the environment and how stable its economy is… Nobody cares about the environment until they have enough money to live comfortably, care for themselves, care for their kids, and care for their elders. Until then, the environment will sit on the back burner.
That being said, I’m afraid that the sad truth is that we need to hurry up and use up all the oil so we can move on. Ironically, we need to drill more (increases supply) so prices come down, so we can live more comfortably, so we can start caring more for the environment. The only question then, is… what kind of damage will we do in the mean time? What will the Earth look like when we come out the other end? What will be our quality of life? Will developing pollution control technology be propelled into high gear to help clean up the mess we’ll make?
I don’t know… but the sooner it happens the better.
Part of my point was … is … that oil is natural, it is organic. It’s part of the natural earth. The green movement does’t see it this way but it is. Burning oil is no different than cutting down a tree and burning it accept that a tree is a living thing that is providing reduced carbon in the atmosphere.
The sin is that we burn everything we can get our hands on. Obsession with fire. Essentially it’s no different to burn pumped oil than it is to burn soy oil, or corn oil. Burning is the issue not where the oil came from. Likewise where we get the chemicals for resin isn’t nearly as important as what we do with them.
We want surfboards to last longer that’s the biggest key. They last 5 times as long and we reduce the number of wasted boards by 5. That’s “green”. No other issue comes close to this one. I’d build boards out of spent nueclear fuel rods if they lasted an extra half life. Now don’t go quote me on that … that’s a joke. But durability isn’t … it’s key.
We want to eliminate emissions when we build them. We want to waste the least materials we can and we want to recycle all the waste we can. We want them to last longer. Where the stuff comes from … it’s all out of the organic bioshere anyway. Oil is part of that bioshere.
There are plant based resins or paints. What I’ve found is that anything with the “green” or “organic” label attached runs about 3 times the cost.
Other than using a wood core with a plant sap/oil sealer, there aren’t a lot a truely green options.
I’m researching various light hardwood trees like albezia, wiliwili (Erythrina), agave, and paulownia for cores and bamboo for the skins. A 100% plant based glue/sealer would then allow for a 100% green surfboard.
The problem with these materials is that the end product will not be the same as what we’ve come to know as a surfboard in its riding characteristics or weight. That doesn’t bother me, but it would bother a lot of others. If you don’t mind riding a HWS or an epoxy popout, it wouldn’t be much different.
Greg,
Very very good points!
I don’t know the quantity of oil that goes into each gallon of epoxy, any chance you could give us an estimate?
I’m willing to bet it’s not a lot, when you compare it to the gas you burn geting down to the beach!!
Such excess use, just to get around…
I’d love to know how far a “surfboards worth” of gas would let you drive… then we can think about that every time you jump in the car.
Everyone is all happy about recycling, but people seem to have missed the most important thing which is reuse!
Infinitely better than recycling.
I’m very interested in Design for Manufacture, where a products design facilitates it’s assembly.
But theres a more important area - Design for Disassembly!
Actually designing a product with its death in mind…
For example, I can strip a wood skin off and use it on another board!
These boards are almost infinitely repairable, with little cosmetic impediment
If I ever was to go into production of these boards, i’d hope to offer a return service.
Customers would be able to return a board when they have finished with it.
That would mean snapped, otherwise they would sell it.
If the board was repairable i’d do that.
Otherwise I have a system for dismantling a board into it’s components, of which the only thing that can’t be biodegraded, reused or recycled is the glass and resin - which accounts for a tiny percentage of the volume, and about 30% of the mass.
Here’s another way of looking at this. Let’s say we got everyone using epoxy and we got the standard board to be built with 1/2 gallon average (that’s considering longboards, shortboards, everything) and there are 500,000 built world wide a year. Today worldwide 20 million barrels of oil are pumped a day. If all boards were built epoxy then there are 4500 barrels of resin used per year (double or triple that for polyester). Figuring that we will run out of petrochemicals in 50 years then what would switching to plant based epoxy resin net us in extra time before running out?
Answer is about 15 minutes. In other words instead of running out in 50 years we’d run out in 49 years, 364 days, 23 hours and 45 minutes.
If all boards lasted 5 times as long then we’d use only 900 barrels a year. That would save a lot more than veggie based resins.
Burning fossil fuels is the issue. If we stopped that, instead of running out in 50 years we’d run out in 1000 years.
As much as experimenting with all this greenery is nice, it simply comes down to your car and your lights. BTW the US burns almost 1/2 of that … 9 million barrels a day.
I will say though that using epoxies does save a significant amount of imported oil. Our company alone saves the US about 20 drums of imported petrochemical a week in comparison to if that was polyester resin. Not a huge percentage but if everyone … enough fuzzy math …