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Most of these things are made from synthetic plastics manufactured from petrochemicals, and thus depend on oil extraction as much as gasoline, even though, at least for me, it seems easy to forget these products are made from petroleum. When I think of oil I still think of the BP spill, not of motorcycle helmets, life jackets, or rubber cement, and very rarely of antihistamines, tents, shag rugs, or parachutes.
Fortunately, chemists at the Netherlands' Utrecht University are thinking about this, and have recently developed a catalyst they hope will enable the wide scale production of bioplastics, a greener option for many of the objects people use every day. According to researcher and professor of inorganic chemistry at Utrecht, Krijn de Jong, the bioplastic "products are exactly the same, only they are made of pruning waste instead of petroleum."1
As published in a recent article in Science, de Jong and his colleagues first took raw biomass, including branches, plant stalks, and pruning waste, and heated these repurposed materials at a very high temperature, which created a biogas.2 In step two, a reaction called the Fischer-Tropsch process occurred, during which a specially-designed catalyst made of thousands of iron nanoparticles converted the biogas into olefins, an element of synthetic plastics.
Stabilized by PhD student Hirsa Torres, the iron nanoparticle catalyst was the experiment's big breakthrough, as it allowed a higher yield of converted olefins from the vaporized wood-like scraps. "Until recently, there were too many steps involved in the process," said Prof. de Jong, "so the technology was not efficient enough to be used on a large scale."3 Torres' catalyst improved the endeavor's efficiency, helping to make it more economical for a larger scale and assisting with a possible shift toward the increased manufacture and use of bioplastic products.
In addition, because the reaction's primary materials consist of agricultural waste, this budding industry would complement, not compete with, the production of food supplies, an extra advantage of the technique. As for me, I am personally excited about this research, as I wear contact lenses that are made now from conventional plastic. Until I have an alternative to putting petroleum-based products into my eyes every day, it is a little hard to see a world without oil extraction.
Image credit: Image of plastic baskets by Flickr's tanakawho.
1. Faculty of Science. "Science publication: Plastics Made without Petroleum." Utrecht University Press Release. February 17, 2012.
2.Torres Galvis, H., Bitter, J., Khare, C., Ruitenbeek, M., Dugulan, A., & de Jong, K. (2012). Supported iron nanoparticles as catalysts for sustainable production of lower olefins. Science, 335, 835-838 DOI: 10.1126/science.1215614. ResearchBlogging.com.
3. Utrecht University Press Release, February 17, 2012.
