U of G research that involves turning plant-based materials into car parts is part of a new display that opened last week at the Canada Science and Technology Museum in Ottawa. The AUTO 21 exhibit shows how Prof. Amar Mohanty, director of U of G’s Bioproducts Discovery and Development Centre, is turning plant-based materials into plastic.

The museum’s “In Search of the Canadian Car” exhibit will be open to the public for several months.

Much of the museum display is based on Mohanty’s research. Visitors are able to see the finely milled wheatgrass that is eventually incorporated into a plastic composite material that can be molded into shapes like automotive mirror casings or interior door panels. The exhibit also offers an up-close look at the research and development process.

Mohanty, a plant agriculture professor who holds the Premier’s Research Chair in Biomaterials and Transportation at U of G, is a project leader for AUTO21, part of the national Networks of Centres of Excellence program. He, along with Mohini Sain of the University of Toronto, are creating car-part prototypes from a “green” plastic and natural and biobased fibres. The goal is to substitute renewable and recyclable engineered composites for petroleum-based materials currently used in the automotive industry.