Pioneering UK scientists have developed a unique way of recycling old televisions to repair damaged body tissue.
The team have created the breakthrough medicine by using waste material from discarded television
sets to enable the switch from widescreen plasma to blood plasma.
Researchers at the University of York based their astonishing findings on the chemical compound polyvinyl-alcohol (PVA), which is widely used in industry and is a key element of television sets with LCD technology.
When these sets are thrown away, the LCD panels are usually incinerated or buried in landfill sites.
However, scientists have now found a way of recovering the PVA from television screens and transforming it into an inert substance suitable for use in tissue scaffolds, which help parts of the body regenerate.
The material can also be used in pills and dressings that are designed to deliver drugs to particular parts of the body.
The five-strong team based at the University of York's Department of Chemistry found that because the PVA in TV screens is bioneutral meaning it doesn't create a reaction in the body making it perfect for medical purposes.
Professor James Clark, director of the York Green Chemistry Centre of Excellence and one of the author’s of the research, said: “With 2.5 billion liquid crystal displays already reaching the end of their life, and LCD televisions proving hugely popular with consumers, that is a huge amount of potential waste to manage.
“It is important that we find ways of recycling as many elements of LCDs as possible so we don’t simply have to resort to burying and burning them.”
The researchers have developed a technique where recovered material is heated in water in a microwave and washed in ethanol to produced “expanded PVA”.
One of this material’s key properties is that it does not provoke a response from the human immune system, making it suitable for use in biomedicine.
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