A new microbead turns out effective as a plastic -free skin cleaner

A new degraded microbe can soon replace plastic exfoliants in skin cleaners.

Polymer spheres effectively remove permanent marker and eyeliner into animal skin samples and divided into molecules similar to sugars and amino acids, researchers report on December 6 The chemical engineering of nature. The beads offer an environmentally friendly alternative to microplastic beads, scientists say.

In 2015, the United States banned companies from adding plastic germs to personal care products that rinsing down drainage to prevent them from entering the waterways where marine life can consume them. Some countries have implemented similar stops, but others still allow companies to add large germs such as cleaners and exfoliants.

The new polymer “can really help move the field and make people think of different ways we can make materials that do not even have the ability to be microplastics,” says Ana Jaklenec, a biomedical engineer in myth.

Jaklenec and colleagues made the spheres, which on average 76 micrometers across, from a type of polymer known as a Poli (β-amino ester). Similar poles (β-amino esters) have been used for biomedical applications such as maintaining medication through the body. The team tested how the spheres were degraded in boiling water; After two hours more than 94 percent of the polymer were divided into molecules associated with sugars and amino acids.

Next, the researchers mix the microparticles with soap foam and used the mixture to remove the permanent marker from pork skin samples. Deleting the marks 50 times with the mixture removed about 74 percent of the paint, while wiping the foam marks only about 38 percent of the paint is removed. The cleaning mixture removed the eyeliner even more effectively: ten wipes with the mixture removed nearly twice as much eyeliner than soap foam alone.

Polymer microbes also absorbed copper ions from water, suggesting that unlike regular plastic germs, they can cleanse the skin of metals encountered in certain types of powder (Sn: 9/26/24).

This increase in performance can push more companies to adopt the most sustainable material in the future, says Ben Ellinging, a polymer chemist at Wesleyan University in Middletown, Conn. Which was not included in the study.

“A lot of fear of looking for more renewable or more degraded materials is that they often have worse properties than you are replacing,” Elling says. It is easy to assume that there will always be an exchange between performance and sustainability, he says, “but you can have absolutely the best of both worlds.”