The Energy Blog

Mirel Bioplastic Plant Announced by Metabolix and ADM

In 2006, Metabolix Inc. (Nasdaq: MBLX), and Archer Daniels Midland (NYSE: ADM) formed a a 50-50 joint venture company operating under the name of Telles to commercialize Mirel(TM) Natural Plastics. The companies announced today that they will jointly produce biobased and totally biodegradable Mirel Natural Plastics.

Telles(TM,) is now building its first commercial scale plant in Clinton, Iowa.  This plant is expected to start up in 2008 and will produce Mirel at an annual rate of 110 million pounds.

Metabolix's founders, Oliver Peoples and Anthony Sinskey, were the first to show that PHAs (polyhydroxyalkanoates -- the chemical term for a naturally occurring form of polyester ultimately derived from sunlight, carbon dioxide, and water through the process of photosynthesis) could be produced by recombinant organisms through work they did at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology during the 1980s.

Made by microbial fermentation of sugars such as corn sugar or cane sugar or vegetable oils, Mirel natural plastics are biobased, sustainable and totally biodegradable alternatives to petroleum-based plastics that are used for many everyday products.  Mirel is produced from renewable resources using a fully biological fermentation process, producing a versatile range of biobased natural plastics with excellent durability in use but that also biodegrade benignly in a wide range of environments.

PHA Plant Will Produce Renewable, Biodegradable Plastics From Corn

An example of how we can reduce our dependence on oil, by making plastics in cojunction with ethanol production.

Archer Daniels Midland Company (NYSE:ADM) and Metabolix have selected Clinton, Iowa as the location for the first commercial plant that will produce PHA, a renewable, biodegradable plastic from corn. This plant will have an initial annual capacity of 50,000 tons per year.

The plant will produce PHA natural plastics that have a wide variety of applications in products currently made from petrochemical plastics, including coated paper, film, and molded goods. The PHA natural plastics are produced using a fully biological fermentation process that converts agricultural raw materials, such as corn sugar, into a versatile range of plastics that have excellent durability in use, but are compostable in both hot and cold compost, and are biodegraded even in the marine environment.

Biodiesel Costs Reduced $0.40 per Gallon by Glycol Production

The U of Missouri (MU) has developed a process for converting glycerin, a byproduct of biodiesel production, to popylene glycol, a nontoxic antifreeze.  This technology can reduce the cost of biodiesel production by as much as $0.40 per gallon of biodiesel said Glen Suppes, inventor of the process and chief science officer of the MU-based Renewable Alternatives. 

Currently, ethylene glycol is prominently used in vehicular antifreeze and is both toxic and made from petroleum. Suppes said the new propylene glycol product will meet every performance standard, is made from domestic soybeans and is nontoxic.

Right now, Renewable Alternatives is licensing this technology to three biodiesel plants, with a fourth one in the works.

This could be a good step in decreasing the cost of biodiesel and providing a non-petroleum chemical.  Reducing the cost of biodiesel is a big deal if it is ever to compete, on its own, with petroleum diesel.  The real problem with US biodiesel is that it is primarily made from soybeans.  At least we could make it from canola (rapeseed) which would double the yield per acre and decrease its cost. We do not have enough land to produce enough biodiesel from soybeans to have a real impact on reducing our dependence on oil.  Diesel from algae, the UW process or gasification/Fischer-Tropsch processes need to be developed for biodiesel to have a real impact.

theWatt and Green Trust Sustainability & Renewable Energy have had previous posts on this subject, but I thought I should put in my two cents worth.

Resouce:  "Chemical Engineering Professor Develops New  Biodiesel Process",  Research at MU news release, 8/12/05

Technocrati tags: biodiesel, propolyne glycol, renewable energy

Plastics from Corn

As oil depletes chemicals that are made from oil become more costly and scarce.  Many of these chemicals or similar chemicals can be made from biomass.  One such chemical is polylactic acid made by NatureWorks LLC, located in Blair, Nebraska and owned by Cargill.  Polylactic acid (PLA) is made from corn and its petrochemical competitors are polyethylene terephthalate (PET) and polystyrene.

At its current state of development PLA is competitive with oil at $33 a barrel and as production increases and more experience is gained, it will go down in price.  PLA is biodegradable and can be fabricated on the same machinery as petrochemical plastics.  It starts to biodegrade after about 8 months on the store shelf; in a 140 F landfill it degrades within weeks into water and carbon dioxide.  Conventional plastics do not biodegrade and are filling up our landfills, roadsides and oceans with billions of pounds of debris.  Disposable plastic cups,"paper" plates and beverage bottles are a natural for this material.

Over 120 customers use NatureWorks PLA including: Biota bottled water,  Wild Oates for all of its deli packaging, Del Monte for fruit and vegetable containers, Sony Walkmans for some of its parts, Versace is making apparel out of PLA fibers, and McDonald's in Europe is using it for cold cups.

Now that we have these plastics from biomass, what is next?  BASF has a starch based polymer and DuPont is developing a corn based polymer called Sorona.  I will be looking for more articles on other biochemicals. I wonder if the demand for this combined with the demand for corn ethanol will ever have an effect on the price of corn.  PLA is made by a fermentation process as is ethanol.  It could be made from any lignocellulosic material and could take advantage of the same enzymes that are being developed for producing ethanol.

Resources:

NatureWorks LLC website
"Plastic Fantastic", Forbes, March 28, 2005, pp 108-111
"One Word of Advice: Now It's Corn", Wall Street Journal Online, October 12, 2004

Technocrati tags: biochemicals