NREL Develops New Catalytic/Biocatalytic Process for Waste Plastic to Biodegradable Materials

NREL Develops New Catalytic/Biocatalytic Process for Waste Plastic to Biodegradable Materials

Gregg Beckham, a chemical engineer, with his team at the U.S. National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) in Golden, Colorado, have designed a two-step process to recycle plastic waste materials. They used cobalt or manganese-based catalysts to break down polymer chains from plastic waste into oxygenated organic molecules then in the second-step, a biocatalyst – the bacterium Pseudomonas putida – is used to convert the oxygenated organic molecules into polyhydroxyalkanoates (PHAs). PHAs which find utilisation in sustainable packaging and in medical uses such as tendon repair.

However, this process has only been developed in the lab to treat pure polymer pellets mixture and it could be challenging to upscale and process a mixture of plastic waste where each component has a different degradation temperature. Another issue would be developing the market for PHAs which is relatively small (currently only around 1 million tons is sold per year). Although the addressable market is much higher, investment in large-scale capacity is required in order to access it. Companies which are already supplying PHAs into the market include BASF, Newlight Technologies and Tianan. As with all kinds of sustainable processes, techno-economic analysis and life cycle assessment need to be carried out to determine whether the technology is sustainable and economically profitable.

Source: New Scientist 10/13/22