Polymers Petrochemicals Degradable Plastics 17-05-2019 - Arhive
A bacterium has been created with a totally synthetic genome that can also produce proteins using fewer triplet DNA bases – or codons – to encode the standard amino acids required for life.1 The discovery could serve as a platform for developing new proteins with unique properties.
The genetic code lays out the rules on how DNA is translated into a message that specifies the amino acids in a protein. Codons containing three of the four nucleobases cytosine, guanine, adenine or thymine can encode either the start of protein synthesis, incorporating an amino acid into the protein being synthesised or terminating protein synthesis. Natural organisms make use of all 64 possible codons but there are only 20 standard amino acids, so some nucleobase triplets can encode the same amino acid.
First bacterium with a totally redesigned genome created
Crude Oil Prices Trend
-Recycling Innovations Expected to Attract Investors Through 2019
Investment trends are expected to grow as the development of the circular economy continues to expand.
This year, three recycling innovations are attracting private capital from major investors: the introduction of robotics and artificial intelligence, consumer brands’ focused efforts on designing packaging and products with recycled content and chemical recycling technologies.
Medium reports that in 2018, the recycling industry generated more than $110 billion in economic activity and $13.2 billion in federal, state and local tax revenue. And as 2019 is shaping up to be a year of major innovations, investment trends are expected to grow as the development of the circular economy continues to expand.
-A tougher bioplastic for food packaging
ADDING rubber to bioplastic to make it less brittle has led to the development of a new type of bioplastic that may provide a suitable alternative to petroleum-based plastic for food packaging.
Producing an alternative to petroleum-based plastic for food packaging is challenging as it needs to meet the standards of the food industry.
So far, products have had limited success due to processing and economic constraints, and some have been too brittle to be used for food packaging.
-Plastic-eating fungus among winners of Waitrose’s £1m pollution fund
A facility that uses fungus to break down plastic and a project that uses mussels to filter microplastics in the sea are some of the winners of Waitrose’s £1m fund to tackle plastic pollution.
The £1m fund was raised from the sale of 5p carrier bags and will be split between the five winners who will receive funding between £150,000 and £300,000.
The supermarket worked with environmental charity Hubbub for the competition which attracted 150 applications, with the winners chosen by expert panel made up of representatives from academia, industry, non-governmental organisations and business.Polymers Petrochemicals Degradable Plastics
-New plastic closes the recycling loop
An astounding 91 percent of plastic is not recycled. Part of the reason for the world’s dismal recycling rate is that lack of collection and recycling infrastructure. Another reason is that recycled plastic is usually of a lower quality.
Researchers at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory have now made a new plastic that can be broken down into its basic chemical building blocks and then rebuilt again and again without any loss in quality.
This means that the plastic, reported in Nature Chemistry, could be recycled in a closed loop. So less new material would have to be manufactured to create products. And by making plastic waste valuable, it would encourage recycling and divert plastic from landfills.Polymers Petrochemicals Degradable Plastics
-Recycling partnership targets big bags
Flexible packaging producer LC Packaging and Veolia Netherlands are to collaborate with the objective of minimising residual waste streams globally.
The aim is to create a Circular Program focused on optimising the recovery and upcycling of flexible packaging after-use, instead of it ending up being incinerated or landfilled.
LC Packaging distributed more than 11 million FIBCs (big bags) in 2018, with a large percentage of those manufactured in Bangladesh.
As demand grows, LC Packaging opened a second plant at the beginning of the year, but there is a surplus of used big bags in the market for which there are few recycling facilities.
Roger Beuting, business development director at Veolia NL (left) and Lucas Lammers, chief executive of LC Packaging
-One to watch: Evonik’s TROGAMID passes Casio tests
Due to its special combination of properties, TROGAMID CX from Evonik was the only high-performance plastic to pass the strict material tests set by Japanese technology company Casio.
Casio tested the use of over 40 different plastics for its latest G-Shock digital watches from the Mudmaster series under particularly harsh conditions.
A team of 30 experts from Evonik tested it during the ‘Mud Masters’ obstacle run in Weeze, Germany.
The watch has a ‘Carbon Core Quard’ structure based on TROGAMID CX. The high-performance material is a permanently transparent high-performance polyamide that has been used successfully for years in the sports, leisure, automotive, cosmetics, medical device and optical industries. The plastic offers high UV protection as well as high resistance to mechanical stress or chemical substances.
-Extrupet increases capacity with second Starlinger line
Extrupet Group (Pty) Ltd, South Africa’s first and largest recycling operation for post-consumer PET bottles, has ordered a second Starlinger PET recycling line to meet the country’s growing demand for rPET.
Extrupet’s PhoenixPET plant near Johannesburg converts more than 2.5 million PET bottles per day into high-quality flakes and pellets. Recycling activities at Extrupet developed around the turn of the millennium out of the necessity to put a stop to the landfilling of PET bottles.
Extrupet’s Group Director Ravi Chanrai said: “In addition to the upcoming expansion in South Africa, the group also plans to increase the capacity of its Nigerian recycling operations. The market in West Africa is highly dynamic and shows a strong demand for products made from recycled PET, such as PET bottles and textiles made of polyester fibres.” Polymers Petrochemicals Degradable Plastics
-Brent oil moves toward $73 on Middle East tensions
Oil prices rose on Thursday for a third day running as fears of supply disruption amid heightened tensions in the Middle East overshadowed swelling U.S. crude inventories.
Brent crude futures were up $1.03 at $72.80 a barrel by 1344 GMT, heading for the biggest weekly rise in about three months.
U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures were up 83 cents at $62.85.
Oil was drawing support from the risk of conflict in the Middle East, with helicopters carrying U.S. staff from the U.S. embassy in Baghdad on Wednesday out of apparent concern over perceived threats from Iran.
-Materials: Portfolio of Novel PBT Compounds Derived from rPET
SABIC’S LNP Elcrin iQ compounds aim to extend useful life of PET bottles and help reduce plastic waste.
A new portfolio of novel PBT compounded resins that are derived from recycled PET (rPET) have been developed by SABIC, Houston, Texas, to support the circular economy and help reduce plastic waste. The newly globally launched LNP Elcrin iQ compounds and blends are based on upcycled iQ PBT resins, a proprietary SABIC technology. This technology reportedly overcomes some of the limitations of mechanical recycling by using chemical processes to depolymerize PET bottles and other PET waste into their precursor chemicals, purify them and then use them to create new PBT resin. The technology can deliver performance and processing benefits such as good chemical resistance, colorability, high flow for faster throughput and flame retardance.
-Cost effective and flexible packaging solution for dairy by Sidel
Sidel highlighted the ongoing shift to PET as a cost- effective and highly flexible packaging solution for dairy products.
During the India International Dairy Expo (IIDE) 2019 held between 3 April to 5 April 2019 in Mumbai, the Indian Dairy Association (West Zone) organized a two-day seminar on “Innovation and technological growth in the dairy industry” to discuss the significance of the dairy industry in India.
During the seminar, Sidel highlighted the ongoing shift to PET as a cost-effective and highly flexible packaging solution for dairy products, as it offers great opportunities to overcome challenges in the local and global dairy market.
