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Teijin Limited has been awarded a contract to supply its carbon fiber material to Bombardier Aerostructures for another seven years, until 2025. Teijin says that part of its focus on aircraft business growth during 2017-2019 and developing carbon fibers with higher tenacity and higher tensile modulus, intermediate materials, carbon fiber thermoplastic consolidated laminate, thermoset prepreg and non-crimp fabric. Teijin was awarded a contract by Bombardier to supply materials for major primary and secondary composite structures in 2010 and the company’s Tenax carbon fiber has been used for primary structure applications including wing, center wing box structures and empennage applications. Source;Teijin

Avantium has retaken full ownership of its YXY plants-to-plastics technology through the purchase of BASF’s shares in the Synvina joint venture. Avantium has appointed Marcel Lubben as Managing Director of Synvina to lead the commercialization of the YXY technology, effective 1 February 2019. Avantium has regained the intellectual property, people and assets for YXY and has paid BASF €13.7 million for its equity stake in Synvina , as agreed in the Joint Venture Agreement. A net payment of €3.7 million was made for full ownership of the assets acquired by Synvina in the last two years. Redefining Commercialization Path for Renewable Chemistries Avantium is redefining the path to commercialization for the YXY technology, which it developed to catalytically convert plant-based sugars into FDCA (furandicarboxylic acid) and materials such as the new plant-based packaging material PEF (polyethylenefuranoate) . PEF can fulfil the demand of leading brands and consumers...

Toyota Motor Corporation and Panasonic Corporation concluded a business-integration contract and a joint-venture contract toward the establishment of a joint venture related to the automotive prismatic battery business.   Main points of the agreements Toyota and Panasonic will establish a joint venture (pending approval from the competition-law authorities in the countries and regions concerned) by the end of 2020. The ratio of equity participation in the joint venture will be 51 percent for Toyota and 49 percent for Panasonic. The scope of the joint venture's business operations will cover research, development, production engineering, manufacturing, procurement, order receipt, and management related to automotive prismatic lithium-ion batteries, solid-state batteries, and next-generation batteries. Toyota will transfer equipment and personnel to the joint venture in the areas of development and production engineering related to battery cells. Panasonic...

Nestlé has announced its broader vision to achieve a waste-free future and announced a series of specific actions towards meeting its April 2018 commitment to make 100% of its packaging recyclable or reusable by 2025, with a particular focus on avoiding plastic-waste. Nestlé CEO Mark Schneider said, "Our broader vision and action plan outline our commitment and specific approach to addressing the plastics packaging waste issue. While we are committed to pursuing recycling options where feasible, we know that 100% recyclability is not enough to successfully tackle the plastics waste crisis. We need to push the boundaries and do more. We are determined to look at every option to solve this complex challenge and embrace multiple solutions that can have an impact now. We believe in the value of recyclable and compostable paper-based materials and biodegradable polymers, in particular where recycling infrastructure does not exist. Collective action is vital, which i...

Climate protection is firmly embedded in BASF’ s new corporate strategy. A central goal of this strategy is to achieve CO 2 -neutral growth until 2030. To accomplish this, BASF is continuously optimizing existing processes, gradually replacing fossil fuels with renewable energy sources and developing radically new low-emission production processes. The company is bundling all of this work in an ambitious Carbon Management program. BASF presents the latest research findings on these new processes as well as innovative, climate-friendly products at its Research Press Conference in Ludwigshafen. Large-scale Reduction in CO 2 Emissions  “ To reach the climate protection targets, a large-scale reduction in CO 2 emissions will be necessary. As a raw material, CO 2 is only suitable in selected applications and such uses will therefore not make a decisive contribution to slowing climate change,” s tressed Dr. Martin Brudermüller, Chairman of the Board of Executive...

According to the United Nations, plastic accounts for up to 90 percent of all the pollutants in our oceans, yet there are few comparable, environmentally friendly alternatives to the material.  New Sustainable Tech Developed by TAU Researchers Now, a new Tel Aviv University study describes a process to make bioplastic polymers that don't require land or fresh water — resources that are scarce in much of the world. The polymer is derived from microorganisms that feed on seaweed. It is biodegradable, produces zero toxic waste and recycles into organic waste. The invention was the fruit of a multidisciplinary collaboration between Dr. Alexander Golberg of TAU's Porter School of Environmental and Earth Sciences and Prof. Michael Gozin of TAU's School of Chemistry. Their research was recently published in the journal Bioresource Technology. Using Seaweed as "Fuel" for Decontamination "Plastics take hundreds of years to decay. So bottles, packaging and ba...

University of Nottingham researchers have developed 100 percent biodegradable and edible food packaging made from plant carbohydrates and proteins to replace polluting plastic materials and improve storage, safety and shelf life. Solution to Develop Advanced Materials for Packaging  The Sino-UK project is led by Professor Saffa Riffat, from the Faculty of Engineering, whose research group is world-renown for innovations in sustainable materials, energy and building technologies.  This includes their investigations into the structure and functionality of sustainable natural materials such as plant polysaccharides (carbohydrates) and proteins to develop advanced materials for applications in: Buildings Energy technologies Packaging  Using a special technical approach, the team is working on plastic films derived from konjac flour and starch, cellulose or proteins that are fully edible and harmless if accidentally eaten by people or animals ...

A team of researchers have developed a bio-composite material using date palm fiber biomass . The new material can be used to produce sustainable, lightweight and low-cost applications in the automotive and marine industries . (non-structural parts, such as car bumpers and door linings). The team involved researchers from: The University of Portsmouth  The University of Cambridge  INRA (Institut national de la recherche agronomique, a French public research institute dedicated to agricultural science)   University of Britanny, South Unlike synthetic composites reinforced by glass and carbon fibers, the date palm fiber polycaprolactone (PCL) bio-composite is completely: Biodegradable,  Renewable,  Sustainable and  Recyclable Bio-Composite with Enhanced Mechanical Properties In a study, published in the journal Industrial Crops and Products, the researchers tested the mechanical properties of the bio-composite. They found that...

Boron nitride nanotubes sure do like to stick together. If they weren’t so useful, they could stay stuck and nobody would care. But because they are useful, Rice University chemists have determined that surfactants — the basic compounds in soap — offer the best and easiest way to keep boron nitride nanotubes (BNNTs) from clumping. That could lead to expanded use in protective shields, as thermal and mechanical reinforcement for composite materials and in biomedical applications like delivering drugs to cells. BNNTs with “Super Cool Properties” The research led by Rice chemist Angel Martí appears this month in the Royal Society of Chemistry journal Nanoscale Advances. BNNTs are like their better-known cousins, carbon nanotubes, because both are hydrophobic – that is, they avoid water if at all possible. So in a solution, the nanotubes will seek each other out and stick together to minimize their exposure to water. But unlike carbon nanotubes, which can be eithe...

The development of future technologies that are not based on mineral oil and can be used for producing chemicals and plastics is one of the major tasks in modern materials science and a key challenge that needs to be addressed if sustainable industrial production is to have a future. Synthetic Polyester from Plant Oil Feedstock  A range of theoretical concepts and laboratory processes must be devised and tested to resolve challenges and problems arising in connection with the natural materials before potential applications for materials obtained from renewable resources can be probed. One such concept has just been described by Professor Stefan Mecking in a current study on obtaining polyester from castor oil entitled “Synthetic Polyester from Plant Oil Feedstock by Functionalizing Polymerization” in the journal “Angewandte Chemie”. With his colleague Dr Ye Liu, an Alexander von Humboldt Fellow and the first author of the study, Stefan Mecking present...