materials | Bio-PET
FENC shows 100% bio-based “drop-in” fibre grade PET
The race to commercialise fully bio-based PET (bio- PET100) took another step forward in March when Taiwan-based chemical company Far Eastern New Century (FENC) showed a 100% bio-based fibre spinning PET grade that matches the processing and dyeing performance of current petrochemical PET fibre grades.
The new “drop-in” bio-PET100 polymer was unveiled at AMI’s Sustainable Plastics confer- ence by FENC Senior Vice President of Research & Development Fanny Liao, who showed two T-shirts produced using fibres spun and dyed from the material. FENC is no stranger to the
area of bio-PET. The company worked with Virent to develop the first bio-PET100 PlantBot- tle samples for Coca-Cola in 2014. At the Milan Expo last year Coca-Cola distributed filled PlantBottles manufac- tured using FENC’s PET conversion technology. However, Liao says
producing a “drop-in” bio-PET100 product for fibre production is more challeng- ing. “It is much more difficult to make 100% bio-PET for yarns because processing is much more susceptible to impurities,” she explains. Bio-PET is forecast to be one of the key growth areas in bioplastics over the next few years. According to data from European Bioplastics and the
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FENC’s Fanny Liao shows off the world’s first 100% bio-based PET T-shirt
Institute of Bioplastics and Biocomposites (IfBB), 30% bio-based PET (bio-PET30) will account for 76.5% of an estimated bioplastic market of 7.85m tonnes by 2019. Bio-PET30 has been
commercial since 2009 and the polymer is being used by major beverage name brands including Coca-Cola, Danone and Nestle in more than 25 countries. It is produced using bio-based monoethylene glycol (MEG), which makes up 30wt% of PET. The remaining 70wt% of PET is comprised of purified terephthalic acid (PTA) produced from paraxylene (PX). Bio-MEG is currently made
from bio-ethylene which is dehydrated from bio-ethanol and dropped into the current ethylene glycol production plants with co-production of DEG(di-EG) and TEG(tri-EG). Today, bio-ethanol is produced from fermentation of sugars from first and second genera- tion biomass. It could also be
COMPOUNDING WORLD | June 2016
chemically or biologically converted from biomass-based syngas (CO+H2). Other routes are also under development to make bio-MEG from sugars and carbon dioxide (CO2). All commercial PTA/PX
production is currently based on petrochemical feedstocks, says Liao, but a number of different routes to bio-PX/PTA are under development, including Virent’s BioFormPX paraxylene process. This catalytically converts sugar to bio-PX. A similar approach is to use pyrolysis to crack biomass to BTX (comprised of benzene, toluene and xylene isomers). There are many approaches
to convert 6-carbon (C6) sugars to bio-PX or PTA (C8). Liao says the converting pathways can be explained through simple mathematical analysis. The first example is 2+2+2+2=8 and uses three ethylene molecules (C2+C2+C2) to synthesise
hexane, which could be further converted to PX via Diels-Alder reaction with ethylene and dehydration. Alternatively, hexene could be formed by addition reaction of isobutene and ethylene (C4+C2=C6) as part of a 4+2+2=8 pathway. The second example is 2+6=8 and could be achieved by adding ethylene to sugar fermented muconic acid, 5-hydromethylfurfual(HMF) or HMF derivatives followed by chemical conversion to PTA. The third route is 3+5=8, where lactic acid ester is combined with bio-isoprene and functional group transforma- tion to di-acids. Finally, the 4+4=8 pathway combines two isobutene molecules to make bio-PX through cyclisation and oxidation steps. Subtraction routes could also be used, such as a 10-2=8 pathway achieved by chemical oxidation of lionene to bio-PTA.
Liao says that with so many
biological and/or chemical conversion routes of biomass and/or sugars to bio-PX/PTA, it is still uncertain which route will come out on top and there are clearly challenges ahead in terms of scaling up and finding the CAPEX required. However, she says the bio-PET100 grade produced on FENC’s pilot fibre polymer plant shows it is possible to produce a 100% drop-in replacement for petrochemical fibre grade PET using existing bio-chemical technology. ❙
www.fenc.com ❙
www.virent.com
www.compoundingworld.com
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