The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) recently awarded a four-year, $744,000 grant to a team of researchers to develop new mulch films for agricultural crops that are not only sustainable and biodegradable but will also help nourish and improve the health of soils and reduce plastic pollution.
Lehigh University Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering Assoc. Prof. Jonas Baltrusaitis and UMass Lowell Plastics Engineering Prof. Meg Sobkowicz Kline are working together to create polymers that would stop weeds and other invasive plants from taking hold in farms while providing nutrients to crops, retaining soil moisture and regulating soil temperature, thereby increasing crop yield.
"Our goal is to create mulch films that will completely biodegrade while also slowly releasing fertilizer, such as urea, to the soil and plants," says Sobkowicz-Kline, who is the team's co-principal investigator.
Baltrusaitisis is the project's lead investigator, with the biopolymer manufacturing company CJ Biomaterials, based in Woburn, Massachusetts, as industry partner.
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