{"id":16530,"date":"2019-07-26T05:27:00","date_gmt":"2019-07-26T05:27:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/?p=16530"},"modified":"2020-06-09T12:42:45","modified_gmt":"2020-06-09T12:42:45","slug":"switching-to-biobased-plastics-why","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/switching-to-biobased-plastics-why\/","title":{"rendered":"Switching to Biobased Plastics: Why ?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Scientists Says, ‘Global awareness of climate change and pollution is\u00a0increasing, but\u00a0finding ways to halt our dependence on fossil fuels and plastics is proving extremely difficult.’<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One possible solution is to shift away from petrochemicals towards a biobased feedstock to make plastics, but how realistic is this proposal?\u00a0The recent research by IDTechEx <\/a>uncovers the factors influencing adoption of biobased polymers in their report, \u201cBiobased Polymers 2018-2023: A Technology and Market Perspective<\/a>\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to press release by IDTechEx, ‘modern society is in thrall to fossil fuels for transportation, energy and manufacturing.’<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On the other hand, ‘worldwide emissions of carbon dioxide show no sign of slowing down,\u00a0in spite of\u00a0the Paris Agreement of 2015,\u00a0as well as\u00a0growing public awareness of the science.\u00a0‘<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As petrochemicals become increasingly scarce, the price of manufacturing plastics from this feedstock will increase, but considering their myriad applications, it\u2019s unlikely demand for these materials will dissipate.\u00a0A need to change behaviours is increasingly evident, both to move away from fossil fuels towards renewable energy sources, and better manage our utilisation of plastics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So\u00a0what\u2019s the answer? Biobased feedstocks,\u00a0which are a good source of monosaccharides such as glucose,\u00a0can be transformed into plastics using a combination of synthetic biology and chemistry. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Indeed,\u00a0a number of\u00a0startups\u00a0and large organisations are exploringnumerous products manufactured by genetically engineered microorganisms which can act as \u201cdrop-in\u201d replacements for existing plastics, or in some\u00a0cases, alternatives which offer superior properties to polymers we are familiar with.\u00a0Companies such asNatureWorks\u00a0and\u00a0Corbion\u00a0have developed poly(lactide) (PLA), a compostable polyester, with a combined a global production of over 225\u00a0kT\u00a0annually. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

PLA has found applications from 3D printing to packaging alternatives, and has the benefit of being fully compostable, potentially eliminating waste which needs to be recycled in order to circularise\u00a0the material.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Although biobased feedstocks seem like they have potential to reduce emissions and reduce recycling requirements, their total market share is dwarfed by traditional petrochemical plastics.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The barriers to widespread adoption of biobased polymer technologies are myriad. Firstly, despite demonstrating proof of concepts in an academic setting, the transition to industrial scale production is far from straightforward. A conservative approach to production methods and the complexity of high volume fermentation do not marry well. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Furthermore, there is a dearth of capital investment to help academic innovators and early stage\u00a0startups\u00a0expand production, both from VCs and from governments. This absence of funding is compounded by the fact that many biobased products are more expensive to manufacture, certainly in the short term, and possibly into the long term as well, until economies of scale start to kick in to bring down the cost of production. Finally, public awareness and willingness to pay more for a \u201cgreener\u201d product hampers demand. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Transitioning to a biobased manufacturing economy has been demonstrably difficult\u00a0to date; however, there are signs that governments are introducing policy initiatives to overcome some of these challenges. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Last year, the EU updated its Bioeconomy Strategy, and have made available funding for circular economy projects, in the form of Horizon 2020 project, worth\u00a0\u20ac80B in total.Looking ahead, IDTechEx projects that the market size for biobased polymers will be 2.7 Mt by 2023, as these barriers are addressed and demand for greener materials increases.<\/p>\n
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Scientists Says, ‘Global awareness of climate change and pollution is increasing, but finding ways to halt our dependence on fossil fuels and plastics is proving extremely difficult.’<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":16531,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16530","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-research"],"featured_image_urls":{"full":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/biodisel.jpg",602,323,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/biodisel-200x200.jpg",200,200,true],"medium":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/biodisel-300x161.jpg",300,161,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/biodisel.jpg",602,323,false],"large":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/biodisel.jpg",602,323,false],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/biodisel.jpg",602,323,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/biodisel.jpg",602,323,false],"ultp_layout_landscape_large":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/biodisel.jpg",602,323,false],"ultp_layout_landscape":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/biodisel.jpg",602,323,false],"ultp_layout_portrait":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/biodisel.jpg",600,322,false],"ultp_layout_square":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/biodisel.jpg",600,322,false],"newspaper-x-single-post":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/biodisel.jpg",602,323,false],"newspaper-x-recent-post-big":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/biodisel.jpg",550,295,false],"newspaper-x-recent-post-list-image":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/biodisel.jpg",95,51,false],"web-stories-poster-portrait":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/biodisel.jpg",602,323,false],"web-stories-publisher-logo":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/biodisel.jpg",96,52,false],"web-stories-thumbnail":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/biodisel.jpg",150,80,false]},"author_info":{"info":["RevoScience"]},"category_info":"Research<\/a>","tag_info":"Research","comment_count":"0","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16530","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16530"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16530\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16531"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16530"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16530"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16530"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}