bioplastics MAGAZINE Issue 03/2022

As many of you will have noticed, we have been including more and more topics that go beyond “just” bioplastics incorporating everything plastic related under the renewable carbon umbrella. In this issue, we have a couple of very interesting points of view regarding advanced recycling and chemical recycling in particular. There are many new promising technologies in development that range differently on their actual sustainability and while I am personally very hopeful for these technologies, we need to be careful and diligent in their evaluation.

News

Review

Conference review

Renewable biomass is one of the key clean energy resources that will help manifest a low-carbon future. However, the process of developing viable and sustainable biobased fuels, chemicals, and products from biomass suffers from similar limitations to stored produce – they decay and expire.

How to prevent algae crop collapse

Solvay (Brussels, Belgium), a global leader in naturally-derived beauty polymers, expands its range of biodegradable guar-based solutions, introduced in December 2021, with two additional thickening and conditioning polymers for beauty care. The two new ingredients, Jaguar® NAT SGI and Jaguar Excel, will enable beauty brands to address stringent global regulations and growing consumer expectations for more responsible and sustainable beauty products.

In the beauty industry, consumers treat packaging as an extension of the product itself. Bottles, jars, tubes, and compacts must look and feel as luxurious as the products they hold. A growing number of consumers search for beauty that runs more than skin deep – in the form of products that are made and packaged with sustainability in mind.

Award-winning new upcycling solution for the cosmetics industry

Sustainable packaging materials provide strategic value

The rise of a new advanced bio-circular medical polymer for metal replacement

The cases of succinic and lactic in VIVALDI

Earthworms are a welcome sight for gardeners and farmers because the wriggling invertebrates recycle nutrients from soil, making them more accessible to plants. As worms burrow, they consume almost everything in their path, including microscopic plastic pollution.

When it comes to plastics production, we are still crude oil junkies. The European Commission projects that by 2050, some 20 % of the global crude oil production could be used to produce plastics, up from some 5–10 % today. In fact, plastics production is expected to be the major driver of growth of the crude oil industry.

Advanced amorphous PHA technology will provide plastics manufacturers and consumer products companies with marine, soil, and home biodegradable options

Flax instead of glass fibres for lightweight solutions

Material News

PreScouter, a Chicago-based (USA) research intelligence company, has compiled a new Intelligence Brief that looks at the potential impact of recycling thermosets on reducing fossil-based plastic waste and highlights some examples of current options for recycling these materials along with some that are close to being fully developed.

TotalEnergies Corbion has launched the world’s first commercially available chemically recycled bioplastics product.

A dvanced recycling technologies are developing at a fast pace, with new players constantly appearing on the market, from start-ups to giants and everything in between – new plants are being built, new capacities are being achieved, and new partnerships are established. Due to these developments, it is difficult to keep track of everything. The report “Mapping of advanced recycling technologies for plastics waste” aims to clear up this jungle of information providing a structured, in-depth overview and insight. It has an exclusive focus on profiling available technologies and providers of advanced recycling including the addition of new technologies and updated/revised profiles.

In technically demanding applications and markets, such as electronics products, transportation, or the construction sector, bioplastics have so far hardly been represented to any significant extent. There are many reasons for this, ranging from insufficient economic competitiveness to inadequate properties for technical products. However, the material properties play an important role in the market success for technical applications. For example, plastics for technical products usually have to meet a large number of requirements, such as high heat resistance, high toughness, and low flammability. Bioplastics like polylactic acid (PLA) can hardly comply with these specifications. Despite intensive research and development in recent years, PLA still does not have a marketable property profile for technical injection moulding products.

Application News

Hemp is the second-fastest-growing plant on earth. With over 40 % of Canada’s hemp production happening in Alberta, it’s a well-known and valuable cash crop to prairie farmers – and now even waste hemp fibre will be used at industrial scale making hemp a dual- use cultivar.

The issue is familiar and pressing – currently, only 9 % of plastic waste is recycled globally, the rest ending up in landfills, in incinerators (thus generating pollution), or in the environment. People want solutions.

It is generally known that one should not ask people for the definition of a word or term when they have a business interest in the outcome. After all, turkeys don’t vote for Christmas.

Polyhydroxyalkanoates (PHA) is a family of microbial linear polyesters, biosynthesized using multiple species of bacteria including Cupriavidus, Pseudomonas, Alcaligenes, Halomonas, Bacillus and Aeromonas et al [1]*. Since the first PHA- poly(3-hydroxybutyrate) (PHB) was discovered more than 100 years ago, more than 150 monomers have been found to form a variety of PHAs [2]. In combination with their biodegradability, biocompatibility, and adjustable physicochemical properties, PHA has been explored for bulk and high-value consumables applications in packaging, agricultural, textiles, and medical industries [1].

Starch is one of the first and most versatile biopolymers used and was cultivated by mankind already in the very first settlements. While first being used for food almost exclusively, starch was one of the pillars of almost every society since thousands of years.

In May 2022, Rudolf Einsiedel, Vice President Cordenka Innovations GmbH, Obernburg am Main, Germany says: