But plant-based ‘bioplastics’ are not new. The first man-made plastic was made in 1862 using cellulose, the main component of plant cell walls, pre-dating the petroleum-based plastics that ...

Qing Guangyan from the Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics (DICP) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) designed and fabricated a high-strength, reconfigurable, and mechanochromic cellulose ...