VTT’s New Technology to Develop Bio-based PEF Plastic Using Citrus Peels

 New technology developed at VTT enables the use of pectin-containing agricultural waste, such as citrus peel and sugar beet pulp, as raw material for bio-based PEF-plastics for replacing fossil-based PET. The carbon footprint of plastic bottles can be lowered by 50% when replacing their raw material of PET with PEF polymers, which also provides a better shelf life for food.

Significant Advantage Over Traditional Means

VTT’s technology has significant advantages for making bio-based PEF plastics. The technology uses a stable intermediate to produce FDCA (2,5-furandicarboxylic acid), one of the monomers of PEF, which enables a highly efficient process. In addition, utilizing pectin-containing waste streams opens new possibilities for the circular economy of plastics.

VTT’s unique scale-up infrastructure from laboratory to pilot scale ensures that this new technology will be brought to a technology readiness level that will allow polymer manufacturers’ easy transition to full scale.

Replacing PET in Food Packaging

PET (polyethylene terephthalate) and other polyesters are being widely used in food packaging, plastic bottles and textiles. Replacing fossil-based PET with plant-based PEF (polyethylene furanoate) polymers can lower the carbon footprint of the products by 50%.

“In the near future, you may buy orange juice in bottles that are made from orange peel. VTT’s novel technology provides a circular approach to using food waste streams for high-performance food packaging material, and at the same time reducing greenhouse gas emissions,” shares Professor of Practice Holger Pöhler from VTT.

Moreover, the barrier properties of PEF plastics are better than PETs, meaning that the food products have a longer shelf life. PEF is a fully recyclable and renewable high-performance plastic. Therefore, it opens up possibilities for the industries to reduce waste and to have positive impact on the environment.

Source: VTT

BIOPLASTIC PHA in Bacardi

 A few years ago, forward-thinking employees at Bacardi Ltd. realized they had a problem. Consumers were increasingly fed up with petroleum-based plastics, which contribute to ocean pollution and climate change. Yet that’s exactly what the company was using in the 80 million bottles of spirits it sold each year.

Would it be possible, they wondered, to produce bottles with something less harmful to the environment — and to their own brand?

Now they have an answer. In 2023, Bacardi will start using bottles made with a remarkable new bioplastic called Nodax PHA. Unlike traditional bottles, the new ones will biodegrade in compost piles, special landfills and even the ocean.

It’s an impressive feat of innovation. Unfortunately, it isn’t quite the “silver bullet” the company claims. In fact, the new project shows just how hard it’s going to be to solve the world’s plastic crisis.

Bacardi started thinking seriously about the issue in the mid-2010s, as global public opinion began to fixate on the problem of ocean plastics. Bottles of the type that hold Bacardi’s booze can actually be recycled at a very high rate — in Norway roughly 97% of them are. 

Researchers Convert Waste Plastic into Carbon Nanotubes for Wires

 Researchers at Swansea University are working on a project that changes waste plastics into highly valuable compounds for the energy industries. Scientists are extracting carbon atoms found in waste plastics and turning them into a nanotube format that can be used for the transmission of electricity. They are producing plastic electric cables without the copper wire inside them, which can be used in residential and industrial construction.

Senior Lecturer, Dr. Alvin Orbaek White is leading the research group at the Energy Safety Research 

Institute in Swansea University. Dr. White has already developed an electrical wire made from 

carbon nanotubes from waste plastics that are suitable for electricity and data transmission.

The vision is to advance global energy sustainability by producing long range electricity 

transmission materials from waste plastics.

Dr Orbaek White said, “Converting plastics into useful materials such as carbon nanotubes can be done

 with a large variety of plastics. Our team has expanded the list of problem plastics to include 

PVdC - Polyvinyl chloride, polyesters and polypropylene to name a few.”

Plastics are a resource of carbon and hydrogen, so the key step is in developing methods of chemistry 

and engineering to fashion the carbon and the hydrogen into more useful materials; in this 

case they make graphene, vapor grown carbon fibers and carbon nanotubes.

Testing Range of Plastics for High-quality Materials

Scientists will test a large range of plastics that are problematic for traditional recycling technologies. 

The key philosophy is to seek a solution from within the problem. The grant of £270,000 

will be provided from the Welsh Government’s Circular Economy Fund.

The capital grant will be used to test the electrical and physical properties of the carbon nanotube 

wires, to purchase testing equipment to ensure high quality materials are being produced from

 the plastics and to advance the ability for a closed-loop chemical recycling process. 

This grant is an indicator of the Welsh Government’s long-term strategy of plastic 

recycling in a circular manner.

Transition Towards Efficient Energy Sources

The research tackles two important problems facing the environment: A transition to more efficient,

 cleaner energy resources and providing a new life for waste plastics, keeping them out of land and sea.

Major Challenges for the Researchers

A major challenge facing recovery of plastics is that they often must be downcycled; this new work promising 

a route to upcycling waste materials into value-added, advanced electronics. This is the dream of the

 circular economy, and the research proposed should help get us there.

Carbon based nano materials are used in a variety of applications across the globe, but they are often 

sourced from fossil fuels. It is exciting to think that they may one day be sourced from waste plastics, 

giving those renewed life as advanced materials.

TrimTabs, a Swansea engineering firm creating technology solutions for positive global impact, is collaborating 

on the project and stated, “We are very excited about this research. This kind of fundamental 

science is needed in order to break out of the current recycling loop.”

Source: Swansea University

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