Researchers have developed a non-toxic plastic alternative derived from hemp, and they say the material can stretch to 1,600% of its size. The stretchy thermoplastic, described in a study published recently in Chem Circularity, is being positioned as a possible replacement for some of the petroleum-based plastics that have helped drive plastic pollution worldwide.
Gregory Sotzing, one of the researchers behind the work, said the team is trying to find new ways to use the entire plant. He said the hope is that cannabidiol, or CBD, can take the place of bisphenol-A, a known endocrine disruptor used in today’s processed plastics. Mukerrem Cakmak said the group has developed CBD-based colycarbonates as sustainable replacements for widely used thermoplastics such as PET.
The work matters because PET is everywhere: in single-use water bottles, food packaging and substrates for flexible electronics. It also depends on large amounts of crude oil and natural gas, and when it is thrown away, it can break down into tiny particles called microplastics. Scientists have spent years looking for greener alternatives, but many plant-based polymers have fallen short because they lack PET’s glass transition temperature and stretchability, and they are often more expensive to make.
The new hemp material appears to close part of that gap. The researchers said it has a high glass transition temperature and is suitable for making transparent plastic films, coatings and other common materials now produced from petroleum-based feedstocks. Sotzing said very few, if any, plastics made from natural resources have this quality. He also said the material has a very high contact angle with water in film form, adding that the team was not expecting polyCBD-carbonate to outperform most polyolefins in that respect.
There is still a manufacturing hurdle. The catalysts typically used to produce bio-based plastics have often required high temperatures and created problems when it came time to remove the catalyst and purify the final product. Sotzing and colleagues said they developed a hemp-based plastic film and tested the processing parameters needed to give it the right structure and properties for broader use. The team is also in the process of setting guidelines for industrial processing.
Cakmak said the work has established CBD-based colycarbonates as sustainable replacements for widely used thermoplastics such as PET, and said the group has built a rigorous processing science framework linking molecular architecture to melt processability, orientation development and stretchability without sacrificing manufacturability. That leaves the central question less about whether the material works in the lab and more about how quickly it can be scaled into everyday products. For a field that has spent years chasing a cleaner answer to plastic pollution, that is the part that now matters most.
