plastics researcher ellen lee gave techknow the first public look at this newest experimental foam. >> i'm gonna have you add in a surfactant, this one, and that kinda acts like the egg in a mayonnaise to blend everything together. and then i'm gonna have you add the blowing agent which in our case is water. i'm gonna mix this up then we'll see the foam start to react. >> whoa, and there it goes. >> it's baking into a cake. >> so you can see all the gas bubbles already forming. >> we use this to kind of evaluate our formulation and how fast it comes up. >> why is it important that this reacts fast? >> how fast you can make each part is really important for manufacturing because you wanna be able to make things in a timely manner. >> are we talking a matter of minutes per foam seat or seconds? >> less than a minute. >> ford is aiming to make their plastics at least 20% bio-based. >> is this actually making the plastic stronger? >> yes, it does. these parts are lighter in weight, i can show you one that is made from hemp versus glass and it's about a 30% weight reduction. so if we conti