We've been working with different agricultural byproducts as feedstocks for our biomaterials.
We chose them because they were abundant, often overlooked, and seemed too valuable to simply be treated as waste.
Eventually, some of them became harder to source. As market demand changed, many farmers switched to different crop varieties, making some of the byproducts we relied on harder to find. We had to find alternative materials that might also offer similar value.
That's one of the things I find most interesting about biomaterials research. The challenge isn't only in the lab. A lot of it is driven by changes in agriculture, local industries, and market demand, which constantly affect the materials we work with.
I'd love to hear others have dealt with this.