Eco‐friendly innovation: Industrial‐scale all‐natural bamboo drinking straw inspired by bamboo’s flexibility and toughness

Yu Luan; Yuting Yang; Qin Su; Jianchang Lian; Huanrong Liu; Fengbo Sun; Xinxin Ma; Hu Miao; Changhua Fang

doi:10.1016/j.jobab.2025.03.002

Volume 10 Issue 2

May 2025

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Article Navigation > Journal of Bioresources and Bioproducts > 2025 > 10(2): 239-252

Yu Luan, Yuting Yang, Qin Su, Jianchang Lian, Huanrong Liu, Fengbo Sun, Xinxin Ma, Hu Miao, Changhua Fang. Eco‐friendly innovation: Industrial‐scale all‐natural bamboo drinking straw inspired by bamboo’s flexibility and toughness[J]. Journal of Bioresources and Bioproducts, 2025, 10(2): 239-252. doi: 10.1016/j.jobab.2025.03.002

Citation:

Yu Luan, Yuting Yang, Qin Su, Jianchang Lian, Huanrong Liu, Fengbo Sun, Xinxin Ma, Hu Miao, Changhua Fang. Eco‐friendly innovation: Industrial‐scale all‐natural bamboo drinking straw inspired by bamboo’s flexibility and toughness[J]. Journal of Bioresources and Bioproducts, 2025, 10(2): 239-252. doi: 10.1016/j.jobab.2025.03.002

Citation:

Yu Luan, Yuting Yang, Qin Su, Jianchang Lian, Huanrong Liu, Fengbo Sun, Xinxin Ma, Hu Miao, Changhua Fang. Eco‐friendly innovation: Industrial‐scale all‐natural bamboo drinking straw inspired by bamboo’s flexibility and toughness[J]. Journal of Bioresources and Bioproducts, 2025, 10(2): 239-252. doi: 10.1016/j.jobab.2025.03.002

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Eco‐friendly innovation: Industrial‐scale all‐natural bamboo drinking straw inspired by bamboo’s flexibility and toughness

doi: 10.1016/j.jobab.2025.03.002

Yu Luan^{a, b, 1},
Yuting Yang^{a, b, 1},
Qin Su^{a, b},
Jianchang Lian^c,
Huanrong Liu^{a, b},
Fengbo Sun^{a, b},
Xinxin Ma^{a, b},
Hu Miao^{a, b},
Changhua Fang^{a, b
,
,}

a.
Institute of New Bamboo and Rattan Based Biomaterials, International Centre for Bamboo and Rattan (ICBR), Beijing 100102, China
b.
Key Laboratory of National Forestry and Grassland Administration/Beijing for Bamboo & Rattan Science and Technology, Beijing 100102, China
c.
Long Bamboo Technology Group Co., Ltd., Fujian 353000, China

More Information

Corresponding author: E-mail address: cfang@icbr.ac.cn (C. Fang)
Available Online: 2025-03-12
Publish Date: 2025-05-01

Abstract

Abstract

Disposable plastic straws are small, lightweight, and non-degradable, making them rarely recycled and causing severe environmental pollution. However, the search for suitable alternatives, balancing high performance with low cost, poses a substantial challenge. Inspired by bamboo’s flexibility and toughness, this study proposed an innovative solution: a biodegradable drinking straw fabricated by winding ultra-thin bamboo slices. The specially prepared bamboo slices demonstrated high tensile strength, exceptional flexibility for bending, and the ability to withstand repeated torsion. To address natural issues of color-producing group migration and mold susceptibility, the bamboo slices underwent simultaneous soaking and ultrasonic treatment. The resulting bamboo straws exhibited remarkable properties with compressive strength of 16.42–19.01 MPa and bending strength of 14.21–15.02 MPa, which matched or exceeded those of commercial paper straws and were significantly higher than those of polypropylene (PP) and polylactic acid (PLA) straws. When exposed to various beverages, bamboo straws retained their structural integrity, absorbed significantly less water than paper straws, and the wet strength was 4.36 times greater than that of paper straws. Moreover, bamboo drinking straws exhibited low production costs and garnered widespread consumer approval. The strategy for industrial-scale production of bamboo straws offers significant potential for replacing plastic straws.
- Sustainable materials,
- Bamboo,
- Flexibility and toughness,
- Biodegradable drinking straw,
- Bamboo drinking straw,
- Plastic pollution

Declaration of competing interest
The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.
Supplementary materials
Supplementary material associated with this article can be found, in the online version, at doi:10.1016/j.jobab.2025.03.002.
¹ These authors contributed equally to this work and should be considered co-first authors.

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