How to Make Plastic with Less Petroleum--Just Add CO2
Tuesday, December 15, 2009 - 12:28
in Physics & Chemistry
Plastic may be fantastic, but it takes an awful lot of petroleum to make it. As such, efforts to cut oil use in the U.S. have produced, among other results, a budding bioplastics industry specializing in plastic manufacturing that relies less on oil for its raw material and more on biomass , carbon dioxide or even microorganisms such as Escherichia coli . Such efforts got a boost Monday when Ithaca, N.Y.–based Novomer, Inc. , announced an $800,000 effort co-funded by the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) to begin commercializing the company's polypropylene carbonate (PPC) materials, made using a combination of CO2 and petroleum . [More]