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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BASF Introduces Modified PBT for Radar Sensor Applications in Vehicles

 BASF launches Ultradur® RX, a modified polybutylene terephthalate (PBT), specifically for radar sensor applications in vehicles. With good resistance against media such as splash water, oils or salt, Ultradur® offers protection for sensor housings. In addition, the new material shields the sensitive electronics in the housings against disturbing electromagnetic waves from other vehicles.

Absorption and Reflection of Interference Radiation

With increasing electromagnetic interference issues in road traffic, it is crucial that for optimal sensor functioning this noise is absorbed and therefore reduced. That makes Ultradur® the perfect choice as it suppresses disturbing radar radiation, better assigns the received signals, which at the same time means an improvement in safety. As a functionalized plastic, Ultradur® RX is an excellent alternative to metal housings, thus contributing to weight savings and higher vehicle efficiency.

Since the absorption properties depend on geometric conditions, the suitable material must be selected for each application - the new Ultradur® RX portfolio offers an ideal solution for any circumstance and is now commercially available.

"The different grades of the new Ultradur® RX series are products designed for absorption and reduction of interference radiation in the range of 76 to 81 GHz. They offer a high level of protection of the sensitive electronics," explains Dr. Erik Gubbels, R&D Ultradur® expert in the Performance Materials division at BASF. "This dielectrically optimized material fulfills the high standards for sensor components and is suitable for the use as a rear housing cover or behind the printed circuit board of a radar sensor, for example."

Source: BASF

Conductive Hydrogel

 Hydrogels are one of the hottest topics in bioelectronics.

Conductive hydrogels, in particular, might prove crucial for treating nerve injuries.

Hydrogels are networks of polymers that hold a large amount of water - like a jelly.

By inserting polyacrylamide and polyaniline, researchers in China were able to create hydrogels that conduct electricity.

They demonstrated that this new material could treat nerve injuries by forming a conducting biocompatible link between broken nerves.

Peripheral nerve injury – for example, when a peripheral nerve has been completely severed in an accident – can result in chronic pain, neurological disorders, paralysis, and even disability.

They are traditionally very difficult to treat.

The new hydrogel could change this.

The team implanted the hydrogel into rats with sciatic nerve injuries. The rats’ nerves recovered their bioelectrical properties – as measured by electromyography one to eight weeks following the operation – and their walking improved.

Irradiating the hydrogel with infrared improves the conductivity from 1.95 nA to 2.3 nA.

Source :https://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/acsnano.0c05197

Scientists Modify Method to Make Graphene from Waste Plastics

 Rice University scientists employed a process to make efficient use of waste plastic. The lab of Rice chemist James Tour modified a method to make flash graphene to enhance it for recycling plastic into graphene. The lab’s study appears in the American Chemical Society journal ACS Nano.

Producing High-quality Turbostratic Graphene

Instead of raising the temperature of a carbon source with direct current, as in the original process, the lab first exposes plastic waste to around eight seconds of high-intensity alternating current, followed by the DC jolt.

The products are high-quality turbostratic graphene, a valuable and soluble substance that can be used to enhance electronics, composites, concrete and other materials, and carbon oligomers, molecules that can be vented away from the graphene for use in other applications.

“We also produce considerable amount of hydrogen, which is a clean fuel, in our flashing process,” said Rice graduate student and lead author Wala Algozeeb.

Tour estimated that at industrial scale, the ACDC process could produce graphene for about $125 in electricity costs per ton of plastic waste.

“We showed in the original paper that plastic could be converted, but the quality of the graphene wasn’t as good as we wanted it to be. Now, by using a different sequence of electrical pulses, we can see a big difference,” Tour said.

Flash Joule Conversion Eliminates Expense Associated with Recycling Plastic

Flash joule conversion eliminates much of the expense associated with recycling plastic, including sorting and cleaning that require energy and water. Rather than recycling plastic into pellets that sell for $2,000 a ton, it could be upcycled to graphene, which has a much higher value. There’s an economic as well as an environmental incentive.

Researchers are working to refine the flash graphene process for other materials, especially for food waste. They are working toward generating a good pulse sequence to convert food waste into very high-quality graphene with as little emission as possible.

The new study follows another recent paper that characterizes flash graphene produced from carbon black via direct current joule heating. That paper, also in ACS Nano, combined microscopy and simulations to show two distinct morphologies: turbostratic graphene and wrinkled graphene sheets. The study described how and why the rearranged carbon atoms would take one form or the other, and that the ratio can be controlled by adjusting the duration of the flash.

Source: Rice University

Novel Biomass-derived Aromatic Polymers with High-heat Resistant Properties

 Researchers from JAIST and U-Tokyo have successfully developed the white-biotechnological conversion from cellulosic biomass into aromatic polymers with the highest thermodegradation of all the plastics.

Aromatic Molecules Produced from Kraft Pulp

Organic plastic superior in thermostability (over 740 °C), was developed from inedible biomass feedstocks without using heavy inorganic fillers and thus lightweight in nature. Such an innovative molecular design of ultra-high thermoresistance polymers by controlling π-conjugation can contribute to establishing a sustainable carbon negative society, and energy conservation by weight saving.

Two specific aromatic molecules, 3-amino-4-hydroxybenzoic acid (AHBA) and 4-aminobenzoic acid (ABA) were produced from kraft pulp, an inedible cellulosic feedstock by Prof. Ohnishi and team in U-Tokyo. Recombinant microorganisms enhanced the productivity of the aromatic monomers selectively and inhibited the formation of the side products.

Prof. Kaneko and team in JAIST have chemically converted AHBA into 3,4-diaminobenzoic acid (DABA); which was subsequently polymerized into poly (2, 5-benzimidazole) (ABPBI) via polycondensation and processed into thermoresistant film.

Also, incorporating a very small amount of ABA with DABA dramatically increases the heat-resistance of the resulting copolymer and processed film attributes to the highest thermostable plastic on record. Density functional theory (DFT) calculations confirmed the small ABA incorporation strengthened the interchain hydrogen bonding between imidazoles although π-conjugated benzene/heterocycle repeats have been considered as the most ideal thermoresistant plastics for around 40 years.

Source: JAIST