Today, most plastics are made exclusively from oil or other fossil fuel derivatives. In fact, around 4 percent of the world’s oil production is used as feedstock to make plastics, with a similar amount consumed as energy in the process.
Offering a potential solution is a company called NewLight Technologies which has produced a carbon negative plastic called AirCarbon. Instead of using oil, the input material is the methane emitted by sewage treatment plants, landfills, power plants, and other industrial sites. This process results in a useful product but also prevents methane from reaching the atmosphere and contributing to climate change.
According to NewLight, AirCarbon is the performance equivalent of a range of plastics that includes polypropylene, polyethylene, and polystyrene. AirCarbon also lends itself to various manufacturing processes including extrusion, blown film, fibre spinning, and injection molding.
The computer manufacturer, Dell, has started to use AirCarbon for a pilot project to manufacture protective bags out of this oil-free plastic. Meanwhile, US telecommunications firm Sprint announced that it will launch an iPhone case based on the revolutionary plastic.
Newlight uses a biocatalyst to process the gases in a reactor, where the carbon is pulled out and rearranged into plastic polymers that can be used to make bags or other materials. The catalysts used with AirCarbon are 10 times more efficient than other solutions, making it an economic choice that is also carbon-negative (meaning it stores more carbon in the plastic than it generates during production). The process is independently verified to be carbon negative on a net basis by NSF Sustainability and Trucost.
For more details and videos see:
http://newlight.com/
http://www.dell.com/learn/us/en/uscorp1/corp-comm/air-packaging
Showing posts with label Packaging. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Packaging. Show all posts
Sunday, November 2, 2014
Thursday, September 4, 2014
Recycling Mixed Plastics
Researchers have developed a new process which will greatly simplify the process of sorting plastics in recycling plants. The method enables automated identification of polymers, facilitating rapid separation of plastics for re-use.
A team of researchers led by Professor Heinz Langhals of LMU’s Department of Chemistry has taken a significant step which promises to markedly expedite the recycling of plastic waste. They have developed a technique which provides for automated recognition of their polymer constituents, thus improving the efficiency of recycling and re-use of the various types of plastic. The technique takes advantage of the polymer-specific nature of the intrinsic fluorescence induced by photoexcitation. “Plastics emit fluorescent light when exposed to a brief flash of light, and the emission decays with time in a distinctive pattern. Thus, their fluorescence lifetimes are highly characteristic for the different types of polymers, and can serve as an identifying fingerprint,” Langhals explains. Details of the new method appear in the latest issue of the journal “Green and Sustainable Chemistry”.
The new technique, which is the subject of a patent application, involves exposing particles of plastic to a brief flash of light which causes the material to fluoresce. Photoelectric sensors then measure the intensity of the light emitted in response to the inducing photoexcitation to determine the dynamics of its decay. Because the different polymer materials used in the manufacture of plastics display specific fluorescence lifetimes, the form of the decay curve can be used to identify their chemical nature. “With this process, errors in measurement are practically ruled out; for any given material, one will always obtain the same value for the fluorescence half-life, just as in the case of radioactive decay,” says Langhals.
Unlike metals, the quality of which often suffers during the recycling process itself, recycled plastics can be processed quite efficiently. “Polymers represent an interesting basis for the sustainable cycling of technological materials. The crucial requirement is that the recycled material should be chemically pure. In that case, bottles made of PET, for example, can be relatively easily turned into synthetic fibre for use in waterproof windcheaters,” says Langhals.
The vast majority of technical polymers are processed as thermoplastics, i.e., they are melted at high temperature and the finished article is produced by injecting the molten material into an appropriate mold, where it allowed to set. Reheating of recycled plastic can, however, lead to deleterious alterations in its properties of the material unless the sorted material is of high purity. Contamination levels as low as 5% are sufficient to significantly reduce the quality of the reformed product. The reason for this “down-cycling” effect is that, as a general rule, polymers tend to be immiscible, as they are chemically incompatible with one another. Remelting of polymer mixtures therefore often leads to partitioning of the different polymers into distinct domains separated by grain boundaries, which compromises the quality of the final product. For this reason, high-quality plastics are always manufactured exclusively from pristine precursors – never from recycled material.
The new method developed by the LMU team could, however, change this. “The waste problem can only be solved by chemical means, and our process can make a significant contribution to environmental protection, because it makes automated sorting feasible,” says Langhals. Indeed, the use of fluorescence lifetime measurements permits the identification and sorting of up to 1.5 tons of plastic per hour. In other words, the method in its present form already meets the specifications required for its application on an industrial scale.
References:
A team of researchers led by Professor Heinz Langhals of LMU’s Department of Chemistry has taken a significant step which promises to markedly expedite the recycling of plastic waste. They have developed a technique which provides for automated recognition of their polymer constituents, thus improving the efficiency of recycling and re-use of the various types of plastic. The technique takes advantage of the polymer-specific nature of the intrinsic fluorescence induced by photoexcitation. “Plastics emit fluorescent light when exposed to a brief flash of light, and the emission decays with time in a distinctive pattern. Thus, their fluorescence lifetimes are highly characteristic for the different types of polymers, and can serve as an identifying fingerprint,” Langhals explains. Details of the new method appear in the latest issue of the journal “Green and Sustainable Chemistry”.
The new technique, which is the subject of a patent application, involves exposing particles of plastic to a brief flash of light which causes the material to fluoresce. Photoelectric sensors then measure the intensity of the light emitted in response to the inducing photoexcitation to determine the dynamics of its decay. Because the different polymer materials used in the manufacture of plastics display specific fluorescence lifetimes, the form of the decay curve can be used to identify their chemical nature. “With this process, errors in measurement are practically ruled out; for any given material, one will always obtain the same value for the fluorescence half-life, just as in the case of radioactive decay,” says Langhals.
Unlike metals, the quality of which often suffers during the recycling process itself, recycled plastics can be processed quite efficiently. “Polymers represent an interesting basis for the sustainable cycling of technological materials. The crucial requirement is that the recycled material should be chemically pure. In that case, bottles made of PET, for example, can be relatively easily turned into synthetic fibre for use in waterproof windcheaters,” says Langhals.
The vast majority of technical polymers are processed as thermoplastics, i.e., they are melted at high temperature and the finished article is produced by injecting the molten material into an appropriate mold, where it allowed to set. Reheating of recycled plastic can, however, lead to deleterious alterations in its properties of the material unless the sorted material is of high purity. Contamination levels as low as 5% are sufficient to significantly reduce the quality of the reformed product. The reason for this “down-cycling” effect is that, as a general rule, polymers tend to be immiscible, as they are chemically incompatible with one another. Remelting of polymer mixtures therefore often leads to partitioning of the different polymers into distinct domains separated by grain boundaries, which compromises the quality of the final product. For this reason, high-quality plastics are always manufactured exclusively from pristine precursors – never from recycled material.
The new method developed by the LMU team could, however, change this. “The waste problem can only be solved by chemical means, and our process can make a significant contribution to environmental protection, because it makes automated sorting feasible,” says Langhals. Indeed, the use of fluorescence lifetime measurements permits the identification and sorting of up to 1.5 tons of plastic per hour. In other words, the method in its present form already meets the specifications required for its application on an industrial scale.
References:
- http://www.en.uni-muenchen.de/news/newsarchiv/2014/langhals_plastikmuell.html
- http://www.treehugger.com/clean-technology/flash-light-new-technology-automatically-sorts-plastics-recycling.html
Monday, May 26, 2014
Mushroom Packaging
Ecovative has designed a new type of packaging which is grown from agricultural waste and mycelium (the root fungus part of muchrooms). Mycelium is a natural, self-assembling glue, digesting crop waste to produce cost-competitive and environmentally responsible material. Unlike plastics, which come from unsustainable petrochemicals, mushroom materials start with plant-based farm waste and can end up in your garden as a compostable material.
The IT company Dell has started to use mushroom packaging to replace fabricated EPE- polyethylene foam parts that provide cushioning and bracing in large packages for Dell servers.
The mushroom product can be used for packaging, insulation and even surf boards. It can be used to replace car plastics and engineered woods which typically use formaldehyde (a known carcinogen).
The pictures show example packaging:
Watch the video here to find out more about the product or visit the website here:
The IT company Dell has started to use mushroom packaging to replace fabricated EPE- polyethylene foam parts that provide cushioning and bracing in large packages for Dell servers.
The mushroom product can be used for packaging, insulation and even surf boards. It can be used to replace car plastics and engineered woods which typically use formaldehyde (a known carcinogen).
The pictures show example packaging:
Watch the video here to find out more about the product or visit the website here:
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