Xuejun Pan, professor in the Department of Biological Systems Engineering, received $1,000,000 for his project “Biobased, fully soil-biodegradable mulch films prepared from biomass for sustainable bioeconomy” through NIFA’s Sustainable Bioeconomy through Biobased Products program within the Agriculture and Food Research Initiative. It was among 7 projects sharing $6.7 million in funding.

Project summary (from CRIS website): Conventional and organic crop growers depend on plastic mulches for multiple benefits such as weed suppression, soil temperature modification, soil moisture retention, and improved crop yield and quality. However, traditional plastic mulches are not biodegradable in soil.plastic mulch removal and disposal are laborious and costly. As a result, most growers resort to landfilling or stockpiling used plastic mulch waste or even burning their plastic mulch waste, which not only costs the growers for disposal but also becomes a grand environmental problem. Therefore, developing biobased and soil-biodegradable mulches is of great interest and importance to agriculture and the environment.This project is to develop 100% biobased and fully soil-biodegradable mulch films from low-cost and renewable biomass (e.g., poplar wood, forest residues, sawdust) through a facile process of dissolution and regeneration. An environmentally friendly and inexpensive solvent, a concentrated aqueous solution of inorganic salt (e.g., LiBr, CaBr2), will be used for biomass dissolution and regeneration. The salt can be easily recycled and reused. The resultant films are composed of cellulose, lignin, and hemicelluloses and thereby are fully biobased and intrinsically soil-biodegradable. Specifically, we will develop and optimize the fabrication of the mulch films from woody biomass via a process of dissolution and regeneration and ensure the resultant films have sufficient mechanical strength and other properties to meet mulch application needs while being biobased and fully soil-biodegradable. The films will be carefully characterized and evaluated to investigate their structure-performance relationship, chemical and structural properties, mechanical strength, optical properties, and soil-biodegradability related to mulch performance. Techno-economic analysis (TEA) and life cycle assessment (LCA) will be conducted to quantify the economic feasibility and potential environmental impact of the proposed films for mulch applications compared with conventional polyethylene films. We will develop and deliver project information that summarizes relevant findings and evaluate the impact of technology transfer through a strategic extension program among target stakeholder groups and the public. Successful completion of the project will provide a fully biobased and soil-biodegradable mulch film to replace plastic ones, which will benefit agriculture, the environment, and the bioeconomy.