polymerguru

The new bottles made from renewable raw material are already available at drug stores and supermarkets. The SUNDOWN® regular line of products, which uses groundbreaking technology for the sun care market, is now available at stores in more sustainable packaging. It is one of the few brands around the world to use sugarcane-based polyethylene in its packaging, which contains 60% green plastic and 40% recycled material, thus helping to avoid unnecessary disposal of solid waste. To find out whether the SUNDOWN® product is manufactured using this material, consumers must look for the "I'm Green" logo on the front and back of the packaging. The green plastic developed by Braskem is produced from sugarcane ethanol, a 100% renewable raw material that is also used as fuel in flex cars. Using green resin not only prevents CO 2  emissions but also removes CO 2  from the atmosphere. For each ton of plastic produced, green plastic sequestrates 2.5 tons of CO 2  released during sugar...

With support from the Welsh Assembly Government, Vertech Limited, a relatively new start-up company partnered with Dawyck Estates, Specialist Bridge designer Cass Hayward LLP, Cardiff University’s School of Engineering, Rutgers University’s AAMIPP Department and Axion International to put in place the first recycled thermoplastic road bridge in Europe. Spanning the River Tweed at Easter Dawyck in Peeblesshire, the 90-foot bridge was built using 50 tons of waste plastic in just 4 days by an outstanding team from Glendinning Groundworks Ltd and 10 Field Squadron (Air Support), Royal Engineers. Being made from plastic, the bridge won’t rust, requires no painting or regular maintenance; and is 100% recyclable. Vertech will also be manufacturing sheet materials using the same technology for use by the European construction sector as a replacement for plywood, MDF and laminates. With this unique technology, Vertech hopes that Europe would be able to convert a large volume of plastic waste...

The FDA apparently will issue a final decision next Spring on an interest group's petition requesting a ban on the use of bisphenol A (BPA) in food packaging. This results from a settlement reached last week in Natural Resources Defense Council v. HHS, No. 11-cv-5801 (S.D.N.Y. 12/07/11). FDA is agreeing to issue a final decision on or before March 31, 2012, settling a complaint by the NRDC that the agency unreasonably delayed a decision on its petition, which dates to 2008. In reality, FDA continued to gather data on the issues, and has been looking at taking what it has called reasonable steps to reduce exposure to BPA in certain aspects of the food supply. For example, the American Chemistry Council has supported restricting the use of BPA in infant feeding bottles and spill-proof cups used by infants. NRDC didn't want to wait for the science, taking the usual pro-plaintiff, anti-industry position that all gaps in knowledge should be filled in with worst-case scenarios. Stud...

Buoyed by consumer preferences, government mandate and corporate commitments, bio-based chemicals and materials will more than double capacity to 9.2 million tons, says Lux Research. The bio-based chemicals and materials industry, carefully nurtured from labs to factories, has reached a tipping point and capacity will double in market potential to $19.7 billion in 2016, as its global manufacturing capacity zooms 140%, according to a recent report by Lux Research. The global capacity for 17 major bio-based materials doubled to 3.8 million tons this year, but over the next five years will climb to 9.2 million tons, bringing critical scale to an industry poised to revolutionize the chemicals market, said the report, titled, "Global Bio-based Chemical Capacity Springs to Scale." "Several strong forces consumer preference, corporate commitment, and government mandates and support are driving development in this space." said Kalib Kersh, Lux Research Analyst and lead au...

Experts estimated the world's installed capacity for concentrating photovoltaics (CPV) at 23 megawatts in 2010. The market research company GTM Research expects annual demand to rise to more than a gigawatt by 2015. Gone are the days of small pilot plants. Forecasts in particular underline the increasing importance of CPV. But a major prerequisite for building the solar panels is a supply of the required high-quality lenses. "We supplied PLEXIGLAS® Solar Fresnel lens parquets for over 10 MW of electricity from concentrating photovoltaics in 2011 already," says Uwe Loffler, who is responsible for the Solar Market Segment at the Acrylic Polymers Business Line of Evonik Industries. "That proved we can produce lenses for multi-megawatt projects." PLEXIGLAS® is used for the primary lenses in the solar panels. These high-quality lens parquets can be supplied with an edge length in excess of one meter. Customers have confirmed the optical efficiency of over 87%. The k...

Styrene is one of the major building-block chemicals used to make many of the rubbery polymers and plastic materials we use today. More than 6 billion tons of it is manufactured each year in the United States alone, most of which goes into producing insulating materials, automobile tires, footwear, medical devices and hundreds of other widely used products. The problem is that all styrene is currently derived from a dwindling resource petroleum and its production requires one of the most energy-intensive processes in the petrochemical manufacturing industry. More than three metric tons of steam is necessary to produce just one metric ton of styrene. That excessive energy consumption also produces significant amounts of carbon dioxide, contributing to the detrimental buildup of greenhouses gases in the atmosphere. At Arizona State University, David Nielsen and Rebekah McKenna are seeking ways to make styrene and other common petrochemicals using renewable resources. They want to produ...

Molecular Solar is pioneering ultra-thin, flexible solar panels that can be used in portable chargers for mobile phones and other handheld devices, allowing devices to be recharged without needing to be connected to a mains power supply. As well as being a convenient way to charge electronic equipment, the technology will also help to reduce an individual's carbon footprint. The Lord Stafford Awards showcase collaboration between business and academia in the Midlands and Molecular Solar was recognised for its very successful partnership with Warwick Ventures, the University of Warwick's technology commercialisation company. Warwick Ventures helped set the company up in 2008 and has been instrumental in securing funding to enable Molecular Solar to translate the research done in the University's Department of Chemistry into marketable products. Most recently, Molecular Solar announced that its solar cells, which are made from organic photovoltaic materials, can now produce ...