Making plastic from sugars
This is one of the projects within plesTic Ready, in which partners collaborate to bring circular plastic innovations to market faster. What if you could make plastic from sugars – entirely biobased, without fossil raw materials? That is exactly what researchers at Hanze are working on.
A smart building block
The focus is on a substance called FDPA (furfural dipropyl acetal). This is a chemical building block that can be used to make polyesters, a type of plastic that is widely used, for example in packaging and fibers. FDPA is derived entirely from sugars, and the production process itself has also been set up to be as green as possible. An additional advantage: the process directly yields a usable form of FDPA – the so-called diester – which can be used in polyester production without extra intermediate steps.
Promising first results
Early results are promising. When researchers incorporated a small proportion (5%) of FDPA into PET, the well-known plastic used in soft drink bottles, the material's properties were already found to change noticeably. It is expected that FDPA can impart interesting new characteristics to future bioplastics.
Still at the beginning
The project is still in its early stages. Johan Chareonsom-Visser and Erik Keller from the Biobased Chemistry & Refinery research group (Hanze) will continue working on the research in the coming period. We will keep you informed of the progress.