A New Class of Engineered Green Composites from Soy Meal/Soy Stalk

Soybean stalks are widely available in large quantities after the harvesting of soybeans. The soybean stalks are normally discarded in the field as mulch, or used as animal feed. However, much of the soybean stalk can be removed without significantly affecting the fertility and carbon content of the soil. Previous work from our research group focussed on the utilization of various agricultural residues (corn stalks, wheat straw etc) to make affordable composites with thermoplastics biopolymers. Excess soybean stalk can be used in value-added composite applications and this has potential to provide additional economic benefits to the Grain Farmers of Ontario. These soybean stalks contain cellulose based fibers. Research remains to be done on the use of agricultural residues and thermoset polymers especially epoxies that are partially derived from soybean oil.  Vegetable oils such as soybean oil can be chemically functionalized to make useful chemical intermediates such as polyols and epoxidized oils which can be used as plastics additives or as monomers for making high value biobased, renewable polymeric materials such as polyurethanes and epoxies.