Project Details

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Development of a Extrusion Process for Starch-Montmorillonite Composite Foam Pellets as Sustainable Soilless Growing Media

Company: AgriPods

Major(s):
Primary: MATSE
Secondary: ME
Optional: ESC

Non-Disclosure Agreement: YES

Intellectual Property: YES

There is a critical need for sustainable biodegradable growing media for improved soilless plant production. Land availability continues to decline with a growing population which requires more quality food products. The properties of available soils continue to degrade including reduced organic matter, unfavorable pH, increased salinity, exposure to harmful chemicals, decreased fertility, and poor structure. Soil also requires maintenance and does not offer precision control over nutrients and water retention. Available alternatives including peat, coco coir, perlite, vermiculite, rock wool, foam-based materials and others suffer from significant issues such as sustainability including end of life disposal, biodegradability, mechanical properties, water retention or aeration limitations, or cost. To address this need, a new stable insoluble compostable soilless medium based on starch-montmorillonite composite foam pellets has been developed. It is currently manufactured in the lab using a hand molding and microwave expansion process. To manufacture in volume, a production extrusion process is needed. Specifically, an extrusion process needs to be developed that mixes the ingredients, gelatinizes the starch, raises the temperature to convert water to steam, extrudes the mixture through a die and chops the extruded material to allow subsequent immediate expansion into a spherical pellet. This kind of process is used to make common cereals like Kix. The goal of this project is to develop a soilless media production extrusion process using the PSU Berhend Plastics Production Laboratory (PPL). The team will have to examine the literature and develop a design of experiments to be performed in the PSU PPL. Multiple iterations will likely be needed. Final materials will need to be characterized for porosity, stability and water retention characteristics.