Turning rice into chips

PORTO ALEGRE, Brazil - Rice, one of the main ingredients in Brazilians' daily diet, will be used for yet another purpose - to make electronic microchips.

A Brazilian company is in the advanced stages for producing electronic silicon from rice shells in the state of Rio Grande do Sul. But it refuses to describe the project for which it's seeking a patent.

There are several other researchers exploring how to make rice more than just a meal in a country where the starch is grown extensively. Brazil produces 12 million tons annually, ninth-most in the world, as it trails only Asian countries, home to the area where the product was first produced in China's Yangtze River Valley, according to data from the rice institute of Rio Grande do Sul (Irga).

Silica, which is found in rice shell, is used to make the electronic silicon that's present in the microchips used in computers and cell phones.

"The recent opening of Ceitec, in the city of Porto Alegre, has widened the range of silica usages," Gilberto Amato, the coordinator of Irga's center of excellence for rice, says.

Ceitec is a public company linked to the ministry of science and technology, which produces semiconductors in Rio Grande do Sul. The state, which is the country's largest rice producer, accounts for 63% of the national harvest and will now combine its crop with technology.

"Countries like China and India are well ahead regarding this initiative," Amato says. "In those nations, it's usual to open electronic devices and find the rice chip within them. Now, we are on the way to doing this."

In Japan, cosmetic industries use rice grains to make sunscreen. Rice possesses an organic compound in its shell that protects it from being sterilized by the sun.

"The international fine chemistry field is looking at the efficiency of this alternative," Amato highlights.

Rice shell also contains furfural, a compound used in furan chemistry, the field of chemical engineering responsible for polymer production. Furfural is the main source for making solvents and paints.

"Furan forms a line that's almost as important as carbon chemistry and petrochemistry, which use special products of high aggregated value," Amato adds.

However, the use of rice as a component still is expensive, as the process begins with collecting the shell, which has a large volume and little weight.

"If the distances for transportation are large, then it's complicated," says José Luiz Viana de Carvalho, a researcher at Embrapa Agroindústria de Alimentos. "[Rice] is technologically feasible, but it requires a [large] scale of production to be economically feasible."

Other products, such as potato and coconut, already have achieved feasibility as chemical components. Coza Utilidades Domésticas is among the Brazilian industries that believe in the novelty of bioplastics, which are a form of plastic made from renewable resources, such as vegetable oil and corn starch.

A year ago, the company decided to invest in the organic (with potato starch) and native (with coconut fiber and shell) lines. However, the technological advancement, in which up to 40% of a product's oil used in its composition can be replaced by renewable resources, may cause the cost of these goods to increase by as much as 30%.

Cristina Zatti, Coza's development manager, is satisfied with the results.

"Due to our concern over sustainability, we search for alternative materials with raw material from renewable sources," Zatti says.

Potato starch, for example, is 100% biodegradable, which means anything made from it decomposes easily.

"Consumers are open to sustainable materials and willing to pay a little more to do their part to defend the planet," Zatti says.

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