The market for greener materials will be affected by the discovery and exploitation of shale gas, which supplies a cheap source of ethylene precursors, however higher carbons are not found in this resource and there is a shortage arising, which is a further factor pushing the search for new sources of monomers, according to plastic market research company AMI.
The analyst company notes that polymers are vital to the global economy from cable insulation, water pipes and medical devices to packaging and there has to be a long-term solution to sourcing that will not run out with fossil fuels.
“Work is continuing on enzyme and conventional catalysis of bio-based feedstocks to produce conventional plastics. The industry is used to working with petrochemical sources, so it will need to adapt to working with agriculture where there are different issues in the supply chain.
“Cargill is one of the three top agricultural companies in the world (the ABC of ADM, Bunge and Cargill) and has decades of expertise and specialist consultants to advise industry on building a suitable supply chain,” AMI noted.
AMI explained that there are now well-established supplies of polymers such as polyamides and polyethylene from renewable sources. One of the leading agricultural universities in this field is Wageningen UR in the Netherlands, where current research projects include the discovery of new sources of polyamide monomers.
“One big area of interest is the use of CO2 from power stations as a feedstock and this has been achieved by several major chemical companies looking at both general hydrocarbons and polymers. The latest development is commercial ventures which are using excess renewable energy to convert the CO2 to usable hydrocarbons and by doing so providing a form of energy storage,” according to AMI.
“CO2 is of great interest as a feedstock for the polymer industry as using it gives a negative carbon footprint and removes a key factor from the global warming equation, plus there are abundant sources.”
