Corn may become another fabric of our lives now that companies are using it to make blankets and clothes.
Cargill Dow LLC, based in Minnetonka, Minnesota, developed a fiber called Ingeo, from corn-based plastic. Clothing and textile companies are knitting, weaving and threading Ingeo into fabrics and household materials to sell to consumers.
Michael O'Brien, a Cargill Dow spokesman, said the product is so versatile that it is possible to furnish an entire house with it.
"You could go to bed at night with pajamas made from it and your sheets and your pillow and your bedding. Put your feet down on carpet made from it in the morning," he said. "You'd have to open your drapes, of course, that are made" from polylactic acid, a biotech plastic that is the raw material for making Ingeo.
The company's plant in Blair, Nebraska, makes the acid by milling corn into starch and then sugar. The sugar is fermented using enzymes to create lactic acid, which is then purified. In the end, what used to be yellow corn is transformed into small, opaque and white plastic pellets of polylactic acid with the potential to be molded into plastic cups, wrappers or spun into the Ingeo fiber.
In January, Cargill Dow announced that 85 companies worldwide -- from clothing makers such as Diesel to blanket manufacturer Faribault Woolen Mills -- were forming a business partnership to develop new products with the patented Ingeo fiber.
Patrick Gruber, vice president of technology at Cargill Dow, says Ingeo is a biodegradable fiber, meaning it can be composted without emitting pollutants into the environment. Unlike many synthetic materials, petroleum-based chemicals are not needed to complete the recipe for Ingeo, which is another plus, Gruber said.
Gruber said partners using Ingeo agreed they would not blend it with harmful chemicals. For example, he said they cannot use chemicals that will form dioxin, a toxic substance that can harm people's health, pollute the environment and potentially lead to cancer.
Ingeo is viewed as a biotech product because of the fermentation process used for making its plastic base. It does not appear that Ingeo has any opponents, said Michael Rodemeyer, executive director for the Pew Initiative on Food and Biotechnology, a Washington research group.
"There's increasing interest, not only in the United States but around the world in using biological processes to reduce environmental harm," Rodemeyer said. "This is a case where there can be some very strong claims that can be made about environmental benefits."
Michael Harris, chief executive of Faribault Woolen Mills in Minnesota, said the company is weaving Ingeo, sometimes with wool, to make blankets because it is safer for the environment and because the fiber is made from corn, a locally grown commodity.
"When we looked at all those things, we thought that just seems to fit with our made-in-America type of products," he said. "When we blend it with wool, it takes on the characteristic of wool, so it tends to remember its state," Harris said. "In its purist state, [Ingeo] takes on a very buttery, almost silken type of feel."
WASHINGTON’S INCENTIVES: The CHIPS Act set aside US$39 billion in direct grants to persuade the world’s top semiconductor companies to make chips on US soil The US plans to award more than US$6 billion to Samsung Electronics Co, helping the chipmaker expand beyond a project in Texas it has already announced, people familiar with the matter said. The money from the 2022 CHIPS and Science Act would be one of several major awards that the US Department of Commerce is expected to announce in the coming weeks, including a grant of more than US$5 billion to Samsung’s rival, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), people familiar with the plans said. The people spoke on condition of anonymity in advance of the official announcements. The federal funding for
HIGH DEMAND: The firm has strong capabilities of providing key components including liquid cooling technology needed for AI servers, chairman Young Liu said Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) yesterday revised its revenue outlook for this year to “significant” growth from a “neutral” view forecast five months ago, due to strong demand for artificial intelligence (AI) servers from cloud service providers. Hon Hai, a major assembler of iPhones that is also known as Foxconn, expects AI server revenues to soar more than 40 percent annually this year, chairman Young Liu (劉揚偉) told investors. The robust growth would uplift revenue contribution from AI servers to 40 percent of the company’s overall server revenue this year, from 30 percent last year, Liu said. In the three-year period
LONG HAUL: Largan Energy Materials’ TNO-based lithium-ion batteries are expected to charge in five minutes and last about 20 years, far surpassing conventional technology Largan Precision Co (大立光) has formed a joint venture with the Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI, 工研院) to produce fast-charging, long-life lithium-ion batteries for electric vehicles, mobile electronics and electric storage units, the camera lens supplier for Apple Inc’s iPhones said yesterday. Largan Energy Materials Co (萬溢能源材料), established in January, is developing high-energy, fast-charging, long-life lithium-ion batteries using titanium niobium oxide (TNO) anodes, it said. TNO-based batteries can be fully charged in five minutes and have a lifespan of 20 years, a major advantage over the two to four hours of charging time needed for conventional graphite-anode-based batteries, Largan said in a
Taiwan is one of the first countries to benefit from the artificial intelligence (AI) boom, but because that is largely down to a single company it also represents a risk, former Google Taiwan managing director Chien Lee-feng (簡立峰) said at an AI forum in Taipei yesterday. Speaking at the forum on how generative AI can generate possibilities for all walks of life, Chien said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) — currently among the world’s 10 most-valuable companies due to continued optimism about AI — ensures Taiwan is one of the economies to benefit most from AI. “This is because AI is