[Graeme]

Plastic That Grows On Trees? Fuel, Polyester And Other Chemicals From Biomass

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'I')t has been an elusive goal for the legion of chemists trying to pull it off: Replace crude oil as the root source for plastic, fuels and scores of other industrial and household chemicals with inexpensive, nonpolluting renewable plant matter.

Scientists just took a giant step closer to the biorefinery, reporting in the June 15 issue of the journal Science that they have directly converted sugars ubiquitous in nature to an alternative source for those products that make oil so valuable, with very little of the residual impurities that have made the quest so daunting.

"What we have done that no one else has been able to do is convert glucose directly in high yields to a primary building block for fuel and polyesters," said Z. Conrad Zhang, senior author who led the research and a scientist with the PNNL-based Institute for Interfacial Catalysis, or IIC.

That building block is called HMF, which stands for hydroxymethylfurfural. It is a chemical derived from carbohydrates such as glucose and fructose and is viewed as a promising surrogate for petroleum-based chemicals.

Glucose, in plant starch and cellulose, is nature's most abundant sugar. "But getting a commercially viable yield of HMF from glucose has been very challenging," Zhang said. "In addition to low yield until now, we always generate many different byproducts," including levulinic acid, making product purification expensive and uncompetitive with petroleum-based chemicals.

[joewp]

A new question to go alongside "Do you want to drive or eat"?

"Do you want a leisure suit or food?"

[untothislast]

So, we're adding all the millions of hectares of arable food-producing land now being set aside for the production of biofuels to run cars . . . to even more millions of hectares of arable food-producing land, which we're now going to use to develop plastics to make things. Leaving us with something like a window-box to sustain the hungry masses. They should use the results of this line of research to grow mushrooms.

Oil has been relatively cheap and plentiful. So much so, that we've had to keep on thinking up new ways to waste it. The key-point though, is that it was already there. Massively scaled (and it would have to be) agricultural projects such as this, require a massive investment of energy at every stage, particularly as nutrient depletion of the soil would likely kick in before too long - requiring augmentation by the types of fertilisers we currently produce from oil.

We can not replace our current mode of existence. Nothing is going to fit the bill. We're going to have to learn to live in simpler, less demanding ways.

[Heineken]

"Inexpensive, nonpolluting, renewable plant matter."

Ay, there's the rub.

First of all, this technology sounds anything but inexpensive. Read the article and you get a sense of the complexity. There's absolutely no hint of what EROEI would be, but I can guess---lousy. Such articles lend the notion that "plants" are just there for the taking, virtually free. Nonsense. Land is expensive. Culturing and harvesting and processing green matter is expensive.

"Nonpolluting"? Have you ever known a chemical industry---no matter what its inputs---that was nonpolluting?

"Renewable"? Yes, trees and other plants are renewable, but at a cost. A steady, relentless drain on soil fertility. Ultimately production levels cannot be maintained without chemical inputs. That means fossil-fuel-based fertilizers, chum.

A giant plant-based industry for plastic, polyester, etc., would be ecologically disastrous. More displacement of natural systems by giant plantations. More CO2 emissions. More erosion and soil compaction. Less biodiversity. And less capacity for food production for people!

Graeme, this is just another dud.

[Valdemar]

Since photosynthesis is barely 1% efficient at the best of times, I find this idea folly for that reason and those stated above. If we want to grow anything, it would be much better using solar or chemical/radioisotope powered nano- and micro-machines instead. I may be all for biotech, being a biology graduate, but I know inefficient systems when I see them and it's bad enough climate change and bio-fuels will hamper our slowly decreasing glut of food.

[Heineken]

Fiber needs, for construction materials and clothing and bags, etc., can be met directly by plants, without complex chemical conversions. Cotton. Wood. Burlap. Etc. Raised naturally, not on mass plantations with mass chemical inputs.

For a smaller, less rapacious human population, of course.

[Twilight]

Cool, hike through a forestry plantation and tell me it is not energy intensive.

(Directed at the authors)

[napoleon]

Beer Crisi in Germany


Grow gold, platic, money, dogs and cats on trees if you want, just don't touch my beer!