Clear vision for new carrot composite

Royal Cosun, a consortium of Dutch sugar beet growers, announced plans to commercialise a composite, based on carrot waste and developed by Scottish science company Cellucomp, at a bioplastics conference in the Netherlands last week.

At the Biobased Based Materials Symposium, held in Wageningen, the Netherlands, 21 June, Royal Cosun spokesperson Bart van Ingen outlined development plans for Curran, a cellulose material extracted from carrot waste. The extracted cellulose can be combined with a variety of resins to create biocomposite materials.

“Although we are still doing research into the material’s properties, advantages we have seen so far include stiffness, strength, toughness and light weight,” said van Ingen.

At the conference, van Ingen showed two successful applications; a fishing rod and a longboard. 

CelluComp first used the material, along with carbon fibre, to create a fishing rod. The Reactor rod combines the stiffness of carbon fibre with the lighter weight and improved impact strength of Curran. The company also used Curran sheets to create a longboard designed by Alex Luxat from Wefunk.

The cellulose content of the material ranges from 50-90%, depending on the application, said van Ingen.

The Curran material, which is usually mixed with resins such as epoxy, polyurethane and polyester, is currently being produced in a pilot plant, will be commercialised in the fourth quarter of this year. 

Van Ingen said the partners expect to commercialise Curan in 2013. 

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