Posted on 04/30/2012 11:44:02 PM PDT by neverdem
A team of chemical engineers led by Paul J. Dauenhauer of the University of Massachusetts Amherst has discovered a new, high-yield method of producing the key ingredient used to make plastic bottles from biomass. The process is inexpensive and currently creates the chemical p-xylene with an efficient yield of 75-percent, using most of the biomass feedstock, Dauenhauer says.
The research is published in the journal ACS Catalysis.
Dauenhauer, an assistant professor of chemical engineering at UMass Amherst, says the new discovery shows that there is an efficient, renewable way to produce a chemical that has immediate and recognizable use for consumers. He says the plastics industry currently produces p-xylene from petroleum and that the new renewable process creates exactly the same chemical from biomass.
'You can mix our renewable chemical with the petroleum-based material and the consumer would not be able to tell the difference," Dauenhauer says.
Consumers will already know the plastics made from this new process by the triangular recycling label "#1" on plastic containers. Xylene chemicals are used to produce a plastic called PET (or polyethylene terephthalate), which is currently used in many products including soda bottles, food packaging, synthetic fibers for clothing and even automotive parts.
The new process uses a zeolite catalyst capable of transforming glucose into p-xylene in a three-step reaction within a high-temperature biomass reactor. Dauenhauer says this is a major breakthrough since other methods of producing renewable p-xylene are either expensive (e.g., fermentation) or are inefficient due to low yields.
A key to the success of this new process is the use of a catalyst that is specifically designed to promote the p-xylene reaction over other less desirable reactions. Dauenhauer says his research colleagues, professors Wei Fan of UMass Amherst and Raul Lobo of the University of Delaware, designed the catalyst. After...
(Excerpt) Read more at sciencedaily.com ...
Yeah... but they sell those water injector systems which give you like a 200% power increase, so that's a good thing, right?
My question would be, how would this plastic/xylene degrade, and what would be the effect on our environment.
Would there be new techniques we would have to develop to return the ingredient back to the ‘biomass’ of the Earth?
If the process uses glucose then any source of glucose would do and various plants like sugar beets or cane could become a source.
I would be more concerned about how it reacts and/or degrades when used as a container for food stuffs.
Cheers
Mel
I think a much better future than ethanol is by fermenting farm products into things like xylene and other specialty chemicals.
Note that the articles says it’s the same xylene produced from oil.
My question is how will they power the hi temp reactions? The wind? Surely not coal. It takes a lot of energy and likely chemicals to recycle what we have already, that’s why it is simply an environmental myth. We could toss it into a volcano, like the good old days.
I'm no motorhead. So I don't know. Don't such engines require special parts, seals, gaskets, etc.?
My question would be, how would this plastic/xylene degrade, and what would be the effect on our environment.
Would there be new techniques we would have to develop to return the ingredient back to the ‘biomass’ of the Earth?
Carbon dioxide is plant food and part of the carbon cycle. Unlike most carbon capture and sequestration schemes for coal and hydrocarbon fueled power plants, this one using biomass could be economically viable.
We can't let the left have its cake and eat it too!
Obesity-Linked Diabetes in Children Resists Treatment
Improved Adult-Derived Human Stem Cells Have Fewer Genetic Changes Than Expected
FReepmail me if you want on or off my health and science ping list.
I hope it’s not named Melamine.
Yeah. Too bad we ignore a free resource like that to get rid of all kinds of trash. Seems to me that having it reduced to primordial magma is the ultimate in recycling.
Modern fuel injection systems don’t need oxygenated fuel to control emissions.
The benefits of oxygenates since their introduction are dubious at best, unless you count the government’s ability to squirt money in preferred directions a benefit.
Thanks neverdem, nice links.
LOL!
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