Food. It’s not just for eating. Sometimes it can be turned into other useful, inedible, products. In a bid to find solutions for food waste, the accumulation of plastic waste or a new source of materials for other practical applications, scientists, engineers and researchers the world over are turning to abundant and easily accessible food sources like vegetables, soybeans and pineapples.

Whether it is being incorporated into drones, masks or, ironically, wraps to keep food fresh, food — and, more specifically, food waste — is proving its mettle beyond consumption.

Follow along with GlobalSpec for a review of just a few of the foods that are being turned into other products beyond their intended use cases.

Soybeans

First on the list of foods being used for applications beyond nourishment is the soybean. Researchers from Singapore’s Nanyang Technological University have reportedly developed a biodegradable food wrap plastic alternative derived from soybeans.

To accomplish this, the researchers gathered soybean pulp-like residue leftover from the production of soy milk and bean curd, and fermented it to create a cellulose to develop a plastic-like food wrap alternative that will disappear entirely within a short time frame as once it is discarded, the material is digested by microbes.

Durian fruit

In a bid to curb plastic waste pollution, a research team from the International Islamic University Malaysia has developed biodegradable food packaging derived from the skin of durian fruit.

The Southeast Asian Durian fruit has a thick and pulpy exterior that when combined with epoxidized palm oil, reportedly transforms into a moldable, biodegradable polymer.

In addition to food packaging applications, the team discovered that the material could also be used as 3D printing filament.

Shrimp shells

While not necessarily an edible component of shrimp, scientists from Washington State University and the U.S. Pacific Northwest National Laboratory are using the waste from shrimp shells to fortify cement.

According to the researchers, nanocrystals and nanofibers of chitin from waste shrimp, lobster and crab shells added to cement reportedly improved the strength of the material by 40% and also delayed the set time for the cement by more than an hour, which benefits long-distance transport and hot weather concrete applications.

Researchers managed to improve the strength of cement using chitin from crab, shrimp and lobster shells based on chitin’s additional set of atoms that enabled researchers to control the charge on the surface of the molecules and their behavior in the cement slurry.

Lobster shells

A London-based startup is turning lobster shells into a plastic alternative.

The startup, called Shellworks, has developed a technique for extracting chitin from lobster shells for the purpose of turning it into bioplastic material that can serve as a substitute for single-use plastics that pollute the environment. To extract the chitin, the lobster shells are ground in a blender and then introduced to an acid and alkali solution that lifts away layers of mineral and protein to reveal chitin nanofibers. From there, the chitosan powder is added to household vinegar, resulting in a bioplastic solution. That solution is then used in Shellworks' custom machines to create 3D objects.

Fish scales

Researchers from the University of Sussex in the U.K. developed a plastic film wrap alternative that is derived from fish skin, fish scales and red algae.

The bioplastic, which has been dubbed Marinatex, is composed of fish scales and fish skin. Combined with red algae acting as a biopolymer, the mixture poses an alternative to standard food-packaging plastic film that is fully biodegradable and compostable, biodegrading in soil in less than one month without leaching toxins. The film is reportedly stronger than typical plastic bags.

Pineapple

Researchers from Mahidol University in Thailand have developed an environmentally friendly approach for manufacturing packaging film for fruits and vegetables derived from pineapple stem starch (PSS).

To reduce the food packaging industry’s reliance on plastic, the team turned to PSS with its elevated amylose, or resistant starch, content. The team developed film from PSS in both pure form and different types combined with glycerol to enhance the film's flexibility and pliability.

Similarly, researchers from the National University of Singapore (NUS) are turning pineapple waste into aerogels for insulation, oil-spill cleanup, noise reduction and food preservation.

To create aerogels derived from pineapple waste, the team used a decortication machine to extract pineapple fibers from pineapple leaves. Those fibers were then combined with a cross-linker polyvinyl alcohol (PVA), which is then cured at 80° C to encourage crosslinking of the PVA and fibers in a 10 to 12 hour-long process.

The pineapple-derived aerogel can, according to researchers, be used like polymer-based aerogels — for heat and sound insulation — as well as for food preservation, reusable mask filters and oil-spill cleanup, thanks to the material’s oil-absorbing properties.

Meanwhile, researchers from Putra University in Malaysia are turning discarded pineapple leaves into structural components for drones.

The researchers have demonstrated that the fiber found in pineapple leaves can be used to create frames for drones with a higher strength-to-weight ratio than drones constructed with synthetic fibers. According to the Putra University team, the so-called pineapple drones can reach heights of 3,280 ft and stay aloft for 20 minutes at a time.

In addition to its stronger components, the researchers discovered that the pineapple leaf-derived drones were also lighter, less expensive and degradable, deteriorating entirely after two weeks once the components are buried in soil.

Researchers from Indonesia’s Gadjah Mada University are also turning to pineapple leaves as a possible replacement for the plastic fibers in the making of single-use masks.

The team from Gadjah Mada University discovered that pineapple leaves are a biodegradable fiber that contains cellulose, hemicelluloses and lignin that can be used in the making of pineapple-based fiber masks.

So far, researchers have determined that pineapple leaves are 10 times coarser than cotton and masks composed of the leaves begin to decompose in just three days once discarded in soil. Additionally, the researchers claim that the pineapple-based fiber masks release fewer of the chemicals that are encountered in the manufacture of plastic-based single-use masks and the pineapple-based fiber masks have proven more effective than their cloth counterparts at preventing infections.

Vegetables

Like shrimp shells being used to fortify cement, researchers from Lancaster University in the U.K. are exploring how adding root vegetable fibers to concrete might improve the strength of the material as well as making it more eco-friendly.

To accomplish this, the team incorporated nanoplatelets taken from the fibers of root vegetables such as sugar beets and carrots into concrete. Tests of the mixture have demonstrated the enhancement of concrete’s mechanical properties with the addition of the sugar beet and carrot nanoplatelets.