Mark Shwartz/Stanford University Stanford chemistry graduate student Aanindeeta Banerjee and Assistant Professor Matthew Kanan have developed a novel way to make renewable plastic from carbon dioxide and ordinary plants.
Stanford scientists have discovered a novel way to make plastic from carbon dioxide (CO2) and inedible plant material, such as agricultural waste and grasses. Researchers say the new technology could provide a low-carbon alternative to plastic bottles and other items currently made from petroleum.
“Our goal is to replace petroleum-derived products with plastic made from CO2,” said Matthew Kanan, an assistant professor of chemistry at Stanford. “If you could do that without using a lot of non-renewable energy, you could dramatically lower the carbon footprint of the plastics industry.”
Kanan and his Stanford colleagues described their results in the March 9 online edition of the journal Nature.
Changing the plastic formula
Many plastic products today are made from a polymer called polyethylene terephthalate (PET), also known as polyester. Worldwide, about 50 million tons of PET are produced each year for items such as fabrics, electronics, recyclable beverage containers and personal-care products.
PET is made from two components, terephthalic acid and ethylene glycol, which are derived from refined petroleum and natural gas. Manufacturing PET produces significant amounts of CO2, a greenhouse gas that contributes to global warming.
“The use of fossil-fuel feedstocks, combined with the energy required to manufacture PET, generates more than four tons of CO2 for every ton of PET that’s produced,” Kanan said.
For the Nature study, he and his co-workers focused on a promising alternative to PET called polyethylene furandicarboxylate (PEF). PEF is made from ethylene glycol and a compound called 2-5-Furandicarboxylic acid (FDCA).
“PEF is an attractive replacement for PET, because FDCA can be sourced from biomass instead of petroleum,” Kanan said. “PEF is also superior to PET at sealing out oxygen, which is useful for bottling applications.”
Despite the many desirable attributes of PEF, the plastics industry has yet to find a low-cost way to manufacture it at scale. The bottleneck has been figuring out a commercially viable way to produce FDCA sustainably.
One approach is to convert fructose from corn syrup into FDCA. The Dutch firm, Avantium, has been developing that technology in partnership with Coca Cola and other companies. But growing crops for industry requires lots of land, energy, fertilizer and water.
“Using fructose is problematic, because fructose production has a substantial carbon footprint, and, ultimately, you’ll be competing with food production,” Kanan said. “It would be much better to make FDCA from inedible biomass, like grasses or waste material left over after harvest.”
Turning plant waste into plastic
Instead of using sugar from corn to make FDCA, the Stanford team has been experimenting with furfural, a compound made from agricultural waste that has been widely used for decades. About 400,000 tons are produced annually for use in resins, solvents and other products.
But making FDCA from furfural and CO2 typically requires hazardous chemicals that are expensive and energy-intensive to make. “That really defeats the purpose of what we’re trying to do,” Kanan said.
The Stanford team solved the problem using a far more benign compound: carbonate. Graduate student Aanindeeta Banerjee, lead author of the Nature study, combined carbonate with CO2 and furoic acid, a derivative of furfural. She then heated the mixture to about 290 degrees Fahrenheit (200 degrees Celsius) to form a molten salt.
The results were dramatic. After five hours, 89 percent of the molten-salt mixture had been converted to FDCA. The next step, transforming FDCA into PEF plastic, is a straightforward process that has been worked out by other researchers, Kanan said.
Recycled carbon
The Stanford team’s approach has the potential to significantly reduce greenhouse emissions, Kanan said, because the CO2 required to make PEF could be obtained from fossil-fuel power plant emissions or other industrial sites.
Products made of PEF can also be recycled or converted back to atmospheric CO2 by incineration. Eventually, that CO2 will be taken up by grass, weeds and other renewable plants, which can then be used to make more PEF.
“We believe that our chemistry can unlock the promise of PEF that has yet to be realized,” Kanan said. “This is just the first step. We need to do a lot of work to see if it’s viable at scale and to quantify the carbon footprint.”
Kanan and colleagues have also begun to apply their new chemistry to the production of renewable fuels and other compounds from hydrogen and CO2. “That’s the most exciting new application that we’re working on now,” he said.
Learn more:Â Stanford Scientists Make Renewable Plastic From Carbon Dioxide and Plants
The Latest on: PEF plastic
via Google News
The Latest on: PEF plastic
- Efficacy and Tolerability of a New Non-Extrafine Formulation of Beclomethasone HFA-134a in Patients with Asthmaon May 24, 2022 at 4:59 pm
Patients were not randomised to treatment if for two consecutive days of the run-in period they had a peak expiratory flow (PEF) variability of ≥25%, used a ß 2-agonist on more than three ...
- Bioplastic Packaging Market Size to Cross US$ 25,395.8 Mn by 2025on May 23, 2022 at 7:57 am
PEF is expected to significantly use for packaging ... The strategy strive for eliminating plastic pollution and transform the method of production and consumption of plastics in the EU.
- The Chemical Recycling Posse: The Good, the Bad, and the Luckyon May 19, 2022 at 5:00 pm
Avantium said that it “develops innovative chemistry technologies across industry value chains in order to produce chemicals and materials based on renewable feedstock instead of fossil resources to ...
- Phuket clears 3-tonne mountain of plastic trash from holiday beacheson May 18, 2022 at 5:01 pm
On Monday, Phuket Environmental Foundation (PEF) chairman Viroj Phutong hailed the pilot “Less Plastic Phuket” scheme, which seeks to reduce and better manage household and business waste ...
- Worley progresses EPC work on Avantium’s flagship FDCA facilityon May 18, 2022 at 8:58 am
Worley (North Sydney, Australia) has announced it has progressed to the engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) phase of the development of ...
- Worley to support Avantium in the next project phase of its flagship bioplastics facilityon May 18, 2022 at 7:51 am
Worley advances to provide EPC services to Avantium for their first-of-a-kind bioplastics facility in Delfzijl, the Netherlands.
- Polyethylene Furanoate (PEF) Market Size Outlook And Growth Stance Forecast 2022-2031on May 18, 2022 at 6:40 am
Shibuya-ku, Tokyo, Japan, Japan, May 18, 2022, 06:05 /Comserve / -- Polyethylene Furanoate (PEF) Market With Top Countries Data, Industry Analysis , Size, Share ...
- Conference unveils new plastics technologies and applications for PET, rPET, PEF and moreon May 16, 2022 at 5:00 pm
PEF is expected to open up new plastic packaging opportunities. For more information, visit www.thepackagingconference.com. Ron Puvak has been the managing director of The Packaging Conference since ...
- Origin Materials, Inc. (ORGN) CEO John Bissell on Q1 2022 Earning Conference Call - Earnings Call Transcripton May 9, 2022 at 10:34 pm
or PEF, rather that we can really, we can solve the climate and the plastic problems and pretty good micro-plastic problems, all with a one single great material solution. So that's sort of our ...
- Petrol scarcity back in FCTon May 8, 2022 at 7:29 pm
The PEF is owing over N100 billion ... The Nation observed that black marketers returned to the streets selling in plastic cans at an average of N2, 500 per 10 litres. The product’s pump ...
via Bing News