It’s not exactly a house made of gingerbread, but a company based in Princeton, Ill., has devised its own construction material made from food–a spray of foam insulation manufactured from soybean oil.
Foam insulation is just the latest product developed by the Urethane Soy Systems Co., which is pioneering a range of plastic materials made from soybean oil. The firm’s goal is for products that range from shoe soles to steering wheels to be crafted out of soybeans.
“People have known for years that given the chemical structure of soybean oil, anything you could make from petroleum, you could make from soybeans,” said Tom Kurth, president and founder of USSC. “Doing it economically has been the challenge.”
Kurth and his colleagues stumbled onto an economically viable way of producing soy-based plastics several years ago. They were looking for new ways to separate plastic materials from molds in a manufacturing process and decided to try soybean oil. But instead of helping to separate the plastic from the mold, the soybean oil actually did the opposite and made it stick more firmly.
“At first, we just put it aside,” said Kurth, “but then we figured out that the reason the soy oil was sticking was that it reacted with the material, so we started working with it.”
The researchers found they could make polyurethane plastic that is 60 percent soybean oil and 40 percent petrochemicals at a cost that is about 10 percent less than making the plastic entirely from petrochemicals. And the soybean-based plastic is more environmentally friendly in the bargain.
They patented the process about four years ago and have been working since to develop new products based on SoyOyl, as they branded the product.
USSC is already supplying polyurethane used in the glue on carpeting backing, some plastic parts in farm machinery and other applications, but the polyurethane plastic for homes and commercial buildings should be the most high-profile product yet to come from soybeans, Kurth said.
“Everybody who owns a home is familiar with insulation,” he said.
USSC people devise formulas for a specific application, such as foam insulation, then supply that blueprint to people in the industry, along with the soybean-based products needed for the application.
“It’s kind of like baking a cake and just changing the recipe slightly,” Kurth said. “This lets a company start producing a product that’s friendly to the environment at a competitive cost.
“As this takes off, it will increase demand for soybeans, and we estimate in this country we have the ability to grow 30 to 40 percent more soybeans than we do now.”
Phone home: US Cellular Corp. is a wireless phone carrier with its national headquarters in Chicago, yet it doesn’t operate a wireless phone service here.
But that might change.
The company is said to be interested in buying PrimeCo PCS. A few years ago PrimeCo was on the market when its owner found itself in violation of federal rules that forbid ownership of more than one wireless license in the same market.
After several changes of wireless ownerships and some mergers, Verizon Wireless held licenses both for what had been operated as Ameritech Cellular and for PrimeCo. US Cellular, now under the leadership of Chief Executive Jack Rooney, who used to be a top executive at Ameritech Cellular, took a hard look at buying PrimeCo, but in the end didn’t do it.
PrimeCo was sold to a group of investors that include Percy Berger and Green Leaf Ridge Co. of Chicago. A PrimeCo spokeswoman said the company isn’t in negotiations to be sold, and Rooney said that US Cellular doesn’t comment on rumors.
But he did say that “obviously Chicago is an attractive market for us. We look at things all the time, buying and selling is part of the culture of this company, but we don’t talk about it.”
US Cellular, which is 82 percent owned by Chicago-based Telephone and Data Systems Inc., is in the midst of a two- to three-year project upgrading its wireless networks to an advanced version of an operating system, dubbed CDMA 1X, that provides more capacity for voice and wireless data services.
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Rooney has been skeptical about the market demand for wireless Web services, but he said the current upgrade makes sense because it provides extra voice capacity, which the company needs, while getting into data services that will run at speeds comparable to dial-ups on a landline phone.
Chicago bargains: Wireless phone service has always been popular in Chicago, where the first commercial cell phone operation began 18 years ago, and with good reason: Wireless rates here are among the lowest in the country.
A survey by Econ One Research finds that among the 25 largest cities, Chicago wireless rates are lowest. They average $35.49 a month, down 7 percent from $38.04 last year.
But even though it was the lowest among 25 markets, Chicago was the only one in December to register an increase from the previous month.