How will we replace plastics?
How will we replace plastics?
(OP)
I find it funny how many people wonder what we should do if we run out of oil (economically speaking), while there's a whole range of solutions readily available (GTL, nuclear, fuel cell, hydro, solar, wind...). A much more tricky question IMHO is, how are we ever going the replace LDPE, HDPE, PP, PS, PU..???





RE: How will we replace plastics?
Bob
RE: How will we replace plastics?
Regards,
RE: How will we replace plastics?
RE: How will we replace plastics?
http://soyworkscorporation.com/
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RE: How will we replace plastics?
RE: How will we replace plastics?
Cotton soaked in nitric acid --—> cellulose nitrate
nitrocellulose + camphor --> celluloid
Used for billiard ball ~1890 however some problems - exploding billiard balls
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Plastics from milk
Casein proteins were one of the first plastics,(1900-1930's) and they are still in use for this purpose. Thin plastic films of casein can be made by adding glycerol or sorbitol as a plasticizer, a substance that lowers the temperature at which a plastic softens, and makes it more pliable.
Vita sine litteris mors est.
RE: How will we replace plastics?
I work for a chemical company that makes HDPE, LDPE, etc, and my boss keeps telling me to think outside the box, how was that??
RE: How will we replace plastics?
I'm not sure how it works, but our local grocer uses plastic containers that are bio-degradable. I think they're similar to the Soy product posted above, but are made from corn. Now I'm curious... gonna go have another look.
RE: How will we replace plastics?
There is no shortage of either element on the surface of Earth. Oceans made of water (two hydrogen atoms per molecule) cover two-thirds of the Earth's surface. Carbon dioxide (one carbon atom per molecule) constitutes 379 parts per million (and rising) of the air we breathe.
The only problem is taking apart the water and carbon dioxde molecules and assembling the polymers of carbon and hydrogen. This requires energy.
The sun provides about 1.3 kilowatts of power per square meter at the distance at which Earth orbits the Sun. As much as 900 Watts per square meter passes through the atmosphere to the Earth's surface on a clear summer day.
All that humans need to do to make plastics is combine these three bountiful quantities (hydrogen, carbon, and energy). The best method would be to genetically engineer plants (including micro-organisms such as algae) to produce polymers. Photosynthesis has been used to produce sugar (C6 H12 06) for eons. It should not be too difficult to redesign plants to produce chains of carbon and hydrogen. Just leave out the oxygen and make long strings of the carbon atoms.
I look forward to the day when the north coast of New Jersey becomes a sea of green instead of a series of refineries and chemical plants.
RE: How will we replace plastics?
Our current standard of life is all because of high energy consumption. Geographically speaking, developed contries have higher per capita energy consumption. This is a proven hypothesis.
By the same logic, oil being a major source of energy, standards of living will come down. So I think people will care less about plastic and more about mules.
Ciao.
RE: How will we replace plastics?
What we need to do is get a grip on our stupid, wasteful consumption addiction. The only way we're going to do so is to tax consumption of these fossil materials and reinvest the revenue into programs to wean us of our addiction. Priority should be given to the most appropriate use of these materials. Crude oil is too valuable as a feedstock to be burning it wantonly like we currently do.
RE: How will we replace plastics?
RE: How will we replace plastics?
RE: How will we replace plastics?
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RE: How will we replace plastics?
I would agree with you on the additional tax if I could actually believe that government would use the additional funds to persue alternatives. Unfortunately I do not believe it would happen. A tax on our consumption "addiction" would only feed the addiction of any government (money). I wonder just how quickly the program funded by this type of tax would be cut or disappear and the funds used elsewhere. Or perhaps I am just feeling way too cynical this morning.
Regards,
RE: How will we replace plastics?
I remember in college buying ink pens that were made from glucose polymers that were extracted from corn stalks. To top it off, they were biodegradible when you desposed of them. That same company also made chairs, desks, and anything you could think of from the corn stalk glucose polymers.
RE: How will we replace plastics?
Without a signal to people's pocketbooks, strong enough for them to notice, we'll continue in our addicted la-la land and CO2 and other combustion emissions are going nowhere but up.
Just using transportation as an example, considering the up-surge in stupid, wasteful consumption in the form of 8-cylinder cars, 2-tonne SUVs for city commuting, the death of the local railroads and the increased use of trucks etc. here in North America, obviously the price signal isn't strong enough yet for it to enter into people's decision-making process when purchasing vehicles, making shipping decisions etc. When the pricing signal is strong enough, fuel consumption may finally move into the top 10 of people's considerations when choosing a vehicle. Until it's the #1 or #2 consideration, the price needs to increase.
RE: How will we replace plastics?
RE: How will we replace plastics?
Many of the weight saving, read as increasing gas milage, in transporation systems were accomplished by switching from metal to a polymer material.
Does it take more energy to produce a ton of steel automotive parts or to produce an equivalent amount to plastics components?
Vita sine litteris mors est.
RE: How will we replace plastics?
So if you can make diamonds you can make petroleum. You need a pressure vessel and .......
RE: How will we replace plastics?
Your comment reminds me of a departmental brainstorming session we had back in university about what to do with CO2 to reduce global warming. Just about every suggestion for sequestering it was thrown out for what it was- energetically idiotic when your whole intent was to produce energy by burning the fuel in the first place. The "chair" of this session got frustrated and said, "This isn't what brainstorming is about- stop critiquing the ideas, put aside your concerns about the thermodynamics and energy balance, and bring the ideas out!". A particularly sharp colleague of mine then replied, "Well, if thermodynamics are out the window, let's make diamonds and oxygen!".
RE: How will we replace plastics?
Are there other plausible theories that you've heard for the source of the limestone? The same magical fairies who created the earth, perhaps?
RE: How will we replace plastics?
I just read the instantaneous formation of the worlds limestone is a creationist argument, I'm not in that one.
RE: How will we replace plastics?
RE: How will we replace plastics?
I'm no geochemist so I'll leave the origins of petroleum to people who actually study these things. Regardless of the source of the carbon and hydrogen in the first place, the formation of petroleum is demonstrably a process which takes a geologically significant period of time and involves the pressures and temperatures experienced at significant depth in the earth's crust. Waiting around for the earth to make us more petroleum is not an option!
RE: How will we replace plastics?
The first I heard on the non fossil orgin of petroleum was on PBS radio. The show was on a Russian scientist who developed or at least did a lot of work on the theory. He also had a good track record of finding oil. He is now in the US ( Houston of course ) and has a successful consulting business. There are a lot of people around trying to twist science to demonstrate that the world really was created in 4,004 BCE but I don't think he was one of them.
When I was reading on limestone, I found that some people claim that the limestone mass in the Carribean area was created instanteniously by a chemical process about 4 or 5 thousand years ago.
As for creating oil, I know it can made from coal, been there, seen it done. It may not be exactly the same but I'll bet you can make trash bags and cars out of it.
RE: How will we replace plastics?
Sure, you can make synthetic hydrocarbons by the Fischer-Tropsch reaction from syngas produced from coal. Or syngas from natural gas, wood, corn stover, coconut husks or just about any other source of carbon EXCEPT carbon dioxide or carbonate rocks. The latter are mere sources of carbon, NOT FUELS! F-T technology has existed for the past eighty years or so. Chemists and chemical engineers are really good at reconfiguring atoms into the molecules we want, IF you have enough energy to ADD to drive the required processes and separate the products. What's your point?
Going the syngas/Fischer-Tropsch route, regardless of the source of carbon, is (with a very few exceptions) energetically enormously wasteful relative to taking those same hydrocarbons directly out of crude oil or natural gas/gas liquids by simple distillation and/or relatively simpler chemical transformations to make chemical feedstocks. "Energetically wasteful" here also means "generating far more moles of CO2 per kg of plastic produced".
If the intent is to use the synthetic products eventually as fuels, going the syngas/F-T route is energetically idiotic relative to simply burning the natural gas, coal, corn stover etc. itself as a fuel for, say, stationary applications like heating and electrical generation, reserving the existing crude resources to generate transporation fuels and chemical feedstocks.
The only exception where F-T makes sense is perhaps as a use for "stranded gas"- natural gas discovered and produced too far away from major markets to use it within economical reach of a pipeline, such that wasting half of it to make liquid products for burning later makes economic sense. It also makes energetic sense relative to simply flaring this gas.
Long before we need to make massive use of F-T technology to make our liquid fuel needs from coal, we'll be making heavier and heavier investments in recovering heavy oils from tarsands and oil shale resources. Converting these to liquid fuels and chemical feedstocks is far less energetically wasteful than going the coal/syngas/F-T route, and we have HUGE reserves of these resources.
The only question is: can the planet survive us burning all these fossil resources to fuel the expansion of the western world's idiotic, energy-addicted lifestyle to the developing world?
RE: How will we replace plastics?
I can remember putting all the garbage in a 5 gallon can, and the trash in 55 gallon drums. There were more flys and probably more disease.