Creating Plastic From Greenhouse Gases

[OKIsItJustMe]

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/creating-plastic-from-greenhouse-gases-180954540/

[font face=Serif][font size=5]Creating Plastic From Greenhouse Gases[/font]
[font size=4]Newlight Technologies is turning carbon emissions into plastic for everyday items[/font]

[font size=3]For his senior thesis at Princeton, Mark Herrema studied farm subsidies and devised a market-driven solution to world hunger. Nothing seems too tall an order for the determined entrepreneur, who majored in politics.

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The production process starts with methane emissions generated at places like landfills, farms, water treatment plants and energy production facilities—anywhere that methane is being emitted where it would otherwise be vented or flared. The first thing we do is capture that methane.

For example, at a farm, organic material is often held in a confined area, such as a tank, where it produces methane, and this methane is vented or routed into a pipe and eventually combusted, with essentially 100 percent of the carbon being released to air. In our process, instead of letting that pipe vent or feed a combustion device, we redirect the pipe to our conversion reactor. Inside the reactor, we mix the methane emissions with water, air and our biocatalyst. Here, the biocatalyst pulls oxygen out of the air, and carbon and hydrogen out of the methane, and combines those molecules to make a long-chain thermoplastic polymer molecule, called AirCarbon.

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The basic science to convert methane into thermoplastic polymers existed for many decades. Unfortunately, while the science existed, the key challenge, and the reason the process had never been commercialized, was cost. Prior to Newlight, the cost to produce polymers from methane emissions was about 2 to 3 times higher than the cost to produce oil-based plastics. Unfortunately, very few companies can afford to use a material at that price level. So, our founding challenge was: how do we carry out this process in such a way where we can outcompete oil-based plastics on price? Ultimately, our key breakthrough was our biocatalyst.

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[tularetom]

1. Just what the world needs - more plastic

[OKIsItJustMe]

2. Just what the world needs - fewer greenhouse gases

People will continue to make plastics. This is a way to do it without oil.

At the same time, in essence, it is a way to “sequester” carbon in a useful form.

[tularetom]

3. It's a tradeoff, that's for sure

Greenhouse gases have the potential to threaten our very existence as a planet occupied by carbon based life forms.

On the other hand, plastic will be around when only cucarachas inhabit the earth.

I'm really not trying to be sarcastic, I just can't get these kind of images out of my mind.

[OKIsItJustMe]

4. Take this as a given: People will continue to produce plastic for the foreseeable future

It’s just too useful.

The good news is, we’re getting better at recycling it.