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Recycling plastic waste into multi-purpose chemicals
CategoriesSustainable News

Recycling plastic waste into multi-purpose chemicals

By Zarkon Group,

Spotted: The COVID pandemic shined a spotlight on the huge amount of plastic waste produced by disposable Personal Protective Equipment (PPE). While PPE such as medical masks, respirators, and surgical gowns are essential health equipment, most of it is highly unsustainable, made using petroleum-based, non-biodegradable polymers. These materials, along with other post-consumer plastic, are not biodegradable and often end up incinerated.

In 2021, as part of the Innovative Solutions Canada programme, which began as the Canadian government’s drive to find new solutions to COVID-19 challenges, Canadian startup GreenMantra was tasked with recycling this PPE waste.

The startup has developed an efficient and cost-effective system for recycling plastics – including bottles, food boxes, film, as well as PPE – into feedstock that can be used to produce speciality waxes and polymers. These, in turn, are used as additives in construction materials like asphalt, roofing shingles, and plastic piping.

GreenMantra’s process operates at relatively low temperature and pressure, making it energy efficient. The system involves depolymerising waste plastics and shortening the length of the polymer chains to produce the wax additive. The company claims that construction products made from its additives outperform fossil-based equivalents.

Creating circular processes that recycle plastic waste into new products is the goal of a huge number of recent innovations Springwise has spotted. These include converting used nappies into pet products and roof tiles made from post-consumer plastics.

Written By: Lisa Magloff

Reference

Bark to beauty: forest byproducts for cosmetics, food, and chemicals 
CategoriesSustainable News

Bark to beauty: forest byproducts for cosmetics, food, and chemicals 

By Zarkon Group,

Spotted: One part of the UN FAO’s (Food and Agricultural Organization) forestry programme is the “conservation and sustainable use of forests to enhance forest-based livelihoods.” In this spirit, Finnish materials technology company Montinutra has created a chemical-free extraction process for valorising forestry waste.

Using Pressurised Hot Water Extraction (PHWE), the company transforms forest industry side streams into valuable new ingredients for the cosmetics, food and beverage, and chemical industries. Sawdust and bark are two of the most common waste products in the forestry, and with Montinutra’s inexpensive, efficient extraction process, businesses can turn a byproduct with little value into a new income stream. 

The bioactive compounds that come from wood waste are highly valuable ingredients. When they are used in place of petrochemical-based materials, manufacturers reduce production emissions while improving the health of their products. In cosmetics, for instance, wood sugars provide emulsifying, SPF-boosting, and antioxidant qualities, and the ingredients can be used in industrial applications as binders, coatings, and fillers.  

The extraction process works with many different types of feedstock, and the machinery and hardware are modular, transportable, and use closed-loop water circulation and energy recovery. That makes it easy for lumberyards and other forestry businesses to integrate a new system into existing infrastructure while improving the overall sustainability of their operations. The minimal amount of material left over after extraction can then be used for biofuel. 

Montinutra’s pilot plant in Turku, Finland, proved the viability of the technology, and the company is now in the planning stages for its expansion to industrial-scale manufacturing capabilities by 2026. Following recent funding, the company hopes to quicken its international expansion and is also looking to soon rebrand as ‘Boreal Bioproducts’.

In Springwise’s database, other innovations centred on upcycling sawdust include using the material for 3D printing and building new beehives that help the insects survive winters.

Written By: Keely Khoury

Reference

Turning CO2 emissions into sustainable chemicals
CategoriesSustainable News

Turning CO2 emissions into sustainable chemicals

By Zarkon Group,

Spotted: As industries around the world push ahead in their plans to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, some of the changes being introduced are, ironically, contributing to the continued growth in the global plastics market. As vehicles seek to reduce weight in order to run more efficiently, plastics are often one of the first materials to be considered as a replacement for steel and other heavy metals. That is only a short-term solution, however, as UN member states negotiate a legally binding agreement to end plastic pollution.  

Innovators are increasingly looking for multi-purpose solutions to the complex plastics problem. Many companies seek to reduce waste or emissions while cleaning current damage to the environment. One such company, Paris-based Dioxycle, created a system that uses industry emissions as feedstock for the production of sustainable manufacturing of the chemical ethylene.  

The process directly captures emissions from manufacturing plants and separates the carbon from impurities. After cleaning, the captured carbon passes through layers of catalytic membranes in the company’s proprietary low-temperature electrolyser. Powered by renewable energy, the carbon is then transformed into ethylene, a building block of modern manufacturing. The chemical is used in heavy industry to produce products that range from diesel and ethanol to recyclable plastics, adhesives, and furniture. Dioxycle’s goal is to recycle 600 megatonnes of carbon annually and it is currently testing the technology in two locations – one in France and one in California.  

An important aspect of the system is its affordability. The company explicitly works to provide end users with a sustainable ethylene chemical product that is equal to or lower in cost than fossil fuel-produced versions.

In the archive, other innovations spotted by Springwise that highlight ways of using captured carbon include nanotubing that could replace copper wires in myriad items and carbon-negative textiles.

Written By: Keely Khoury

Reference

A method for removing carcinogenic ‘forever chemicals’ from water
CategoriesSustainable News

A method for removing carcinogenic ‘forever chemicals’ from water

By Zarkon Group,

Spotted: If you’ve ever bought a takeaway, chances are it arrived in packaging that uses PFAS, or poly- and per-fluoroalkyl substances. PFAS is a permanent group of 4700 industrial chemicals that have leaked into our environment, contaminating our blood, water, air, and food.

Thankfully, recently published work by chemical engineering and environmental scientists at the University of California, Riverside, aims to make these chemicals not-so-permanent. Their new method breaks up these ‘forever chemicals’ found in drinking water into smaller, harmless compounds.

The process infuses the contaminated water with hydrogen before exposing it to ultraviolet light; hydrogen makes water molecules more reactive, while the light causes chemical reactions that destroy the PFAS chemicals. This new method breaks the strong fluorine-to-carbon chemical bond that makes these pollutants so long-lasting and accumulative in the environment. Compared to other ultraviolet water treatment methods, the molecular destruction of PFAS increased from 10 to almost 100 per cent.

The new clean-up technology is also eco-friendly. “After the interaction, hydrogen will become water. The advantage of this technology is that it is very sustainable,” said Haizhou Liu, an associate professor in UCR’s Department of Chemical and Environmental Engineering and the paper’s corresponding author.

Although Liu and his colleagues have only tested out the methods in small volumes of tap water, the team has been offered a $50,000 (around €46,600) proof-of-concept grant from UCR’s Office of Technology Partnerships to scale up and handle larger volumes of water.

Springwise has previously spotted other green technologies that clean up polluted water, including oil-eating microbes, and a process that treats industrial wastewater.

Written By Georgia King

Reference

Sequestered CO2 turned into carbon fibre and wastewater treatment chemicals
CategoriesSustainable News

Sequestered CO2 turned into carbon fibre and wastewater treatment chemicals

By Zarkon Group,

Spotted: Mars Materials is a California-based startup working to commercialise technology developed by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL). Using captured carbon dioxide, the process creates acrylonitrile (ACN), which is a building block for carbon fibre. Carbon fibre is used in plastics, rubbers, and chemicals, as well as in steel and aluminum production. 

By reducing the need to create new chemicals, businesses using the material reduce their production emissions while putting captured carbon to extended use. Financially, the material could be a significant cost saver for companies as the Mars Materials team says that using the new method results in lower production costs than current systems. 

Overall, the company plans to put at least a gigatonne (one billion tonnes) of captured carbon into everyday use. When used in carbon fibre applications and as a base material for chemical manufacturing, the sequestered emissions could soon be in products at every corner shop. Having recently closed a pre-seed round of funding that raised $660,000, the company plans to begin producing product samples to test with manufacturers. The organisation’s two founders were also announced as Breakthrough Energy Fellows, recognition that comes with support for accelerating their innovation. 

Captured carbon is being used in an increasingly varied range of applications. Springwise has spotted onboard emissions being used to power ships and alternative proteins fermented with captured carbon.

Written By: Keely Khoury

Reference