A team of Malaysian PhD students has won a global engineering challenge with a sustainable approach to packaging dried food products.
The engineers from the University of Southampton Malaysia, University of Malaya, and Universiti Teknologi Petronas, have developed a prototype for dissolvable food blocks that would significantly reduce the amount of single-use plastic supermarket packaging.
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Team NanoMalaysia was named the Greenpeace scenario winner of the Institute of Engineering and Technology Global Challenge in London.
The PICAS block, which is made from carrageena and starch, provides an alternative to plastic packaging for dried, loose foods by protecting the food product until they are boiled in hot water.
A clear layer of starch holds the food in place, while the carrageenan, a natural ingredient that comes from red seaweed, prevents moisture from getting in.
Ivan Ling, Project Lead from the University of Southampton Malaysia, said: “We are extremely honoured to be chosen as the winner of this prestigious award. One of the recent issues raised by the Malaysian Minister of Energy, Science, Technology, Environment, and Climate Change, is the dumping of plastic waste, and this got us thinking how we could play a role to help solve this.”
“We plan to develop the PICAS block further and hope to have it commercialised in the near future.”