by Komoneed | Sep 6, 2024
CSIRO and Murdoch University have launched The Bioplastics Innovation Hub, an $8 million collaboration that will work with industry partners to develop a new generation of 100% compostable plastic.
Based at Murdoch University’s main campus in Perth, WA, the Bioplastics Innovation Hub aim is to revolutionise plastic packaging by developing biologically derived plastic that can break down in compost, land or water.
Dr Andy Whiteley, CSIRO Research Program Director, said the hub aims to bring together experts in microbiology, molecular genetics, synthetic biology, biochemical engineering, advanced manufacturing and circular economy by translating advancements in bioplastics research to real-world applications.
“Our primary focus is the development of 100% compostable, bio-derived packaging for use as sprays, films, bottles, caps and wrappers which are engineered to fully break down in compost, land and in aquatic environments,” Whiteley said.
With global concerns over plastic pollution and fossil fuel depletion driving an increased demand for compostable bioplastics, the hub will aim to equip the plastics industry with the tools and expertise required to manufacture materials and continue to drive a green economy for plastic waste.
The first key focus area will be a co-investment with WA-based biotechnology company Ecopha Biotech to develop a new process for water bottle production using compostable bioplastics derived from waste products from the food industry.
Putting food waste to good use: the hub is developing sustainable plastics using food waste, such as cooking oil. ©CSIRO
Murdoch University Deputy Vice Chancellor Research & Innovation Professor Peter Eastwood said managing the growing plastic waste crisis required innovative technological solutions, including bioplastics.
“Together with CSIRO, Murdoch University will fast-track the production of novel compostable bioplastic and introduce a green plastic to the market which will significantly minimise the requirement for non-sustainable plastic production,” Eastwood said.
“We also aim to assist industry in establishing an advanced biomanufacturing sector, to commercialise compostable bioplastics that meet the manufacturing design needs and certification standards for 100% biodegradation.
“The outcomes of this project will boost the capability of Australia for commercial production of compostable bioplastics. In particular, the Hub meets the sector priority of increasing technical leadership of Australian manufacturing.”
Image credits: CSIRO
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by Komoneed | Sep 6, 2024
A new catalytic process, developed at the University of California, Berkeley, works equally well with the two dominant types of post-consumer plastic waste: polyethylene, the component of most single-use plastic bags; and polypropylene, the component of hard plastics, from microwavable dishes to luggage. It also efficiently degrades a mix of these types of plastics.
Clear plastic water bottles made of polyethylene tetraphthalate (PET), a polyester, were designed in the 1980s to be recycled this way. But the volume of polyester plastics is minuscule compared to that of polyethylene and polypropylene plastics, referred to as polyolefins.
“We have an enormous amount of polyethylene and polypropylene in everyday objects, from lunch bags to laundry soap bottles to milk jugs — so much of what’s around us is made of these polyolefins,” said John Hartwig, a UC Berkeley professor of chemistry who led the research. “What we can now do, in principle, is take those objects and bring them back to the starting monomer by chemical reactions we’ve devised that cleave the typically stable carbon–carbon bonds. By doing so, we’ve come closer than anyone to give the same kind of circularity to polyethylene and polypropylene that you have for polyesters in water bottles.”
Hartwig, together with graduate student Richard J “RJ” Conk, chemical engineer Alexis Bell, who is a UC Berkeley Professor of the Graduate School, and their colleagues, has now published the details of the catalytic process in the journal Science.
Like a string of pearls
One key advantage of the new catalysts is that they avoid the need to remove hydrogen to form a breakable carbon–carbon double bond in the polymer, which was a feature of the researchers’ earlier process to deconstruct polyethylene. Such double bonds are an Achilles heel of a polymer, in the same way that the reactive carbon–oxygen bonds in polyester or PET make the plastic easier to recycle. Polyethylene and polypropylene don’t have this Achilles heel — their long chains of single carbon bonds are very strong.
“Think of the polyolefin polymer like a string of pearls,” Hartwig said. “The locks at the end prevent them from falling out. But if you clip the string in the middle, now you can remove one pearl at a time.”
The two catalysts together turned a nearly equal mixture of polyethylene and polypropylene into propylene and isobutylene — both gases at room temperature — with an efficiency of nearly 90%. For polyethylene or polypropylene alone, the yield was even higher.
Conk added plastic additives and different types of plastics to the reaction chamber to see how the catalytic reactions were affected by contaminants. Small amounts of these impurities barely affected the conversion efficiency, but small amounts of PET and polyvinyl chloride — PVC — significantly reduced the efficiency. This may not be a problem, however, because recycling methods already separate plastics by type.
Conk adjusts a reaction chamber in which mixed plastics are degraded into the reusable building blocks of new polymers. Image credit: Robert Sanders/UC Berkeley.
Hartwig noted that while many researchers are hoping to redesign plastics from the ground up to be easily reused, today’s hard-to-recycle plastics will be a problem for decades.
“One can argue that we should do away with all polyethylene and polypropylene and use only new circular materials. But the world’s not going to do that for decades and decades. Polyolefins are cheap, and they have good properties, so everybody uses them,” Hartwig said. “People say if we could figure out a way to make them circular, it would be a big deal, and that’s what we’ve done. One can begin to imagine a commercial plant that would do this.”
The researchers believe the process, if scaled up, could help bring about a circular economy for many throwaway plastics, thereby reducing the fossil fuels used to make new plastics.
Top image credit: iStock.com/Andreas Steidlinger
