Daily News

A study using Circa’s renewable solvent Cyrene and new solvent Cygnet 0.0 showed that they have enhanced performance in the production of membranes, as well as when used as solvents in the bio-catalysed synthesis of polyesters. This work opens up a wealth of possibilities to replace toxic, fossil-based solvents throughout polymer chemistry.

In an article published on 10 June in Nature Communications, researchers at the University of Cambridge Knowles Lab describe how they are able to create a polymer film from plant protein that is sustainable, scalable and 100 percent natural.

While plastics are processed at temperatures considerably higher than 100 degrees Celsius, enzymes usually become denatured at these high temperatures. Now, researchers at the Fraunhofer Institute for Applied Polymer Research IAP have managed to reconcile these contradictions: they are able to embed enzymes in plastics without the enzymes losing their activity in the process.

Avantium N.V, a leading technology company in renewable chemistry, announces that that it has been awarded a total of €1.78 million by the EU Horizon 2020 program.

A new report has been published, laying out the current state of the carbon economy within the EU as well as the technological and societal challenges that prohibit a sustainable transition to the circular economy.

With the launch of a new, unique event – the Renewable Materials Conference – comes, too, a new innovation award for the Renewable Material of the Year 2021. The conference, said organiser nova Institute, is an attempt to bring all relevant industries involved in the development of renewable material solutions under the umbrella of a single, all-encompassing 3-day ‘renewables’ event.

Sustainable biochemicals company Circa Group AS has announced that Dr Sarah Hickingbottom has joined the company as General Manager for New Product Development and Stakeholder Relations on 29 March 2021.

The University of Bath has become the first UK university to sign the Green Chemistry Commitment - a charter to train the next generation of chemists in the theory and application of green chemistry principles.

Renewable chemistry company Avantium N.V., a leading technology company in renewable chemistry, has announced that its subsidiary Avantium Renewable Polymers (“Avantium RNP”) has signed two additional conditional offtake agreements for the supply of PEF resin to manufacture bottles and films, bringing the total now to four such contracts.

The annual Green Talents Competition, organised by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF), has been won by Laura Rovira Alsina, a doctoral student in Water Science and Technology at the University of Girona (Spain).

Scientists from the University of Bath have made a sustainable polymer using the second most abundant sugar in nature, xylose.

Polyolefins and biopolymers producer Braskem has joined forces with the University of Illinois Chicago (UIC) to develop a new route for producing ethylene, a raw material used to make thermoplastic resins.

A University of Akron (UA) professor’s latest development in bioplastics has the potential to make important strides in sustainability for future plastics.

Products made from bio-based plastics must undergo the same testing procedures as conventional plastic products to access the market of the European Union (EU), in order to exclude any health risk for consumers.

ReSolute, the Flagship EU project focused on creating a new, sustainably-sourced, safer alternative to traditional, fossil-based solvents, launches today.

Scientists at NREL - the National Renewable Energy Laboratory of the U.S. Department of Energy – have come up with what they claim is a ‘groundbreaking method for producing renewable polyurethane without toxic precursors’.

Evonik and Siemens Energy have started up a pilot plant sponsored by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) that uses carbon dioxide and water to produce chemicals.

A recent invention of 3D printable printing material from U.S. Navy scientists could make the underwater equipment strategically left in the ocean biodegradable.

A new European project called ELIOT project, in which, among other partners, Dutch research centre TNO is taking part, has been launched to study and develop at large scale the most promising recycling methods for biocomposites – especially the materials now being used in the aerospace industry.

It was an attractive idea, but was it true? A few years ago, the first reports of wax moth caterpillars being able to eat and digest plastic surfaced in the press. The news was received with excitement, with some even hopefully talking of a breakthrough in plastic waste management.

Carbiolice, a French start-up developing and producing biobased, biodegradable and compostable plastic solutions has joined forces with agricultural film manufacturer Barbier Group to develop a new PLA-based mulch film.

The BIOnTop project has come to the end of the first of the in total four years which this project will span.

The BBI project CHAMPION, which started in June 2020, will develop a large number of new, safe biobased materials for circular applications. This new library of biobased materials will bring the circular ambitions of the European Union a step closer.

A faster, more efficient way of recycling plant-based "bioplastics" has been developed by a team of scientists at the Universities of Birmingham and Bath.

Over the next three years, Senbis in Emmen, the Netherlands, will be investing €5.5 million through its new subsidiary SPIC Facilities BV, in a testing facility for the development of sustainable plastics.

BioNanocel project, funded by the Economy, Business and University department of the Andalusian government, will produce high-value packaging intended to preserve food better and longer.

A thousand litres of seawater can contain up to 8.3 million particles of microplastics. Until now, identifying these very small particles has been difficult – usually they are only detected once they have accumulated in the bodies of fish.

Carbios, a company pioneering new bio-industrial solutions to reinvent the lifecycle of plastic and textile polymers, announces the publication of an article in the prestigious scientific journal Nature, entitled “An engineered PET-depolymerase to break down and recycle plastic bottles”.

Russian researchers from the Federal Research Clinical Center of Physical-Chemical Medicine, the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology, and Lomonosov Moscow State University have demonstrated that two incompatible components—a protein and a polymer—can successfully be blended in a single electrospun fiber.

Royal DSM, a global science-based company in Nutrition, Health and Sustainable Living, today announces that it has awarded Professor Marc Hillmyer, from the Chemistry Department at the University of Minnesota Twin Cities, with the 2020 Bright Science Award in materials sciences.