Synthetic Compostable Bioplastics
Synthetic PHA is a bioplastic that degrades like paper: bacteria will decompose it in forests and oceans, but not at your kitchen table. Our initiative is to develop its cost-efficient and scalable production, using chemical technology and carbon capture instead of fermentation.
Rik Weersink
TU Eindhoven
Mechanical Engineering and Biomedical Engineering
Over het initiatief / About the initiative
In welke fase zit jouw initiatief? / In what stage is your initiative?
Ideefase
Heb je jouw initiatief al gevalideerd? / Did you validate your initiative?
The concepts are validated by several advisory academic and industrial experts. The product-market fit is currently being executed.
Meer informatie over jouw initiatief / More info about your initiative
Plastic pollution is a particularly hard problem to tackle. Primarily because the material has become irreplaceably abundant due to its excellent mechanical properties, applicability for processing, high barrier properties, and, most of all, its cost efficiency. Given that plastics can be made from renewable sources, there is only one specific box most of them cannot tick: degradability.
Common approaches to reduce plastic pollution are lowering its applications and mandating recyclability. These efforts are very helpful, but not sufficient. We cannot recycle all waste, and microplastics are posing a threat to our environment and health.
On the other hand, many virgin plastics can also be replaced by compostable plastics, like polyhydroxyalkanoates (PHA). This is a group of plastics that can have similar characteristics to polyethylene (PE), but with the degradability of paper. Right now, they are commercialised using fermentation, resulting in an expensive brittle material. However, a few research groups have produced synthetic PHA, a flexible plastic made with efficient chemistry. Our initiative builds on these methods and aims to produce the PHA poly-3-hydroxypropionate (P3HP) from renewable olefins, such as ethylene, which can be produced using Direct Air Capture or biomass. The techno-economic feasibility is conceptually validated, and the costs are expected to be slightly higher than bio-PE, making it the most cost-efficient and scalable biodegradable plastic.
The challenges
Technology: Renewable olefins are epoxidised and carbonylated to lactones, which are turned into PHAs with ring-opening polymerisation. Even though the carbonylation and ring-opening polymerisation have not been industrialised yet, their techno-economic feasibility is validated by multiple experts. However, these steps, especially carbonylation, require costly resources and specialised labs for research.
Product: The material characteristics of P3HP are slightly different from PE. Mechanically the materials are alike, but P3HP has a slightly lower melting point (80 °C). These properties can potentially be adapted with methods like co-polymerisation and additives.
Market: Synthetic PHA has not been commercialised yet. Companies must be willing to step away from downstream recycling and fully commit to high-volume uptakes of a completely new product for the sake of its degradability. Think of unrecyclable products (diapers), degradable applications (mulch films), or microplastic-free products (health care).
Regulations: Rules are made with end-of-life recycling in mind, but for PHA, circularity occurs upstream, which strangely limits its applications. Furthermore, they are not allowed for single-use purposes, like paper, because they are “plastics”. They are, however, allowed for applications that mandate degradation.
Wat is er anders/nieuw aan jouw idee/oplossing t.o.v. bestaande oplossingen? / What is different/new about your idea/solution compared to existing solutions??
The main innovation is to step away from fermentation to produce compostable bioplastics and use methods that we know from petrochemical processes. Such technologies remind us of unsustainable industries, but the processes themselves are very promising for sustainable applications. When the sources and the end-product are sustainable, the entire production is sustainable: the technology is efficient, scalable, and electrified. In the end, the best way to make plastics that compete with low-priced virgin plastics is to use technology with the same efficiency.
Wat zijn jouw volgende stappen om het verder te ontwikkelen? / What are your next steps to develop the initiative?
The most important next step is a product-market fit of synthetic PHA and commitment from companies to research applications for high-volume uptakes. Synthetic PHA is currently produced at lab scale, but it is realistic to produce a kg and validate it for applications and processing methods. This is a necessary step to secure investments and subsidies to industrialise the technology. Furthermore, we can test and optimise polymerisation conditions to create the exact properties that have a suitable market.
Wat heb je nodig om (nog meer) impact te maken met dit initiatief? / What do you need to make (more) impact with this initiative?
We are raising budgets from subsidies and convertible loans to produce synthetic PHA for a product-market fit. Furthermore, we are also setting up projects at the TU Eindhoven and TU Delft to research the production and applications of PHA.
