UMass
Chemical Engineers and Collaborators Discover a High-Yield Method for Producing
Everyday Plastics from Biomass
(April 30,
2012) A team of chemical engineers led by Paul J. Dauenhauer of the
University of Massachusetts Amherst has discovered a new, high-yield method of
producing the key ingredient used to make plastic bottles from biomass. The
process is inexpensive and currently creates the chemical p-xylene with an
efficient yield of 75-percent, using most of the biomass feedstock, Dauenhauer
says. The research is published in the journal ACS Catalysis.
Consumers will already
know the plastics made from this new process by the triangular recycling label
"#1" on plastic containers. Xylene chemicals are used to produce a
plastic called PET (or polyethylene terephthalate), which is currently used in
many products including soda bottles, food packaging, synthetic fibers for
clothing and even automotive parts.
Dauenhauer, an assistant professor of chemical engineering
at UMass Amherst, says the new discovery shows that there is an efficient,
renewable way to produce a chemical that has immediate and recognizable use for
consumers. He says the plastics industry currently produces p-xylene from
petroleum and that the new renewable process creates exactly the same chemical
from biomass.
‘You can mix our renewable chemical with the petroleum-based
material and the consumer would not be able to tell the difference,"
Dauenhauer says.