IDA Polymer’s international seminar on Bioplastics went down well with participants

The Danish society of engineers – polymer group, IDA Polymer, hosted an international seminar on bioplastics in collaboration with Danish Materials Network (DMN) with more than 50 participants.
The first presenter Etienne Boyer, French Atomic & Alternative Energy Commission (CEA), mapped the most promising fully biodegradable and fully bio-based plastics. Then Esben Taarning, Haldor Topsøe, presented recent developments of catalysators for optimizing the production of vinyl glycolate a possible future precursor to bioplastics.

Before lunch professor Rajni Hatti-Kaul, University of Lund, presented a Swedish research programme concerning possible steps to sustainable plastics and transition pathways. She was followed by Charlotte Merlin, Force Technology, who introduced the participants to life cycle analysis when comparing bioplastics and conventional plastics from an LCA point of view.

The day continued with a presentation from Marc Lankveld, Corbion. The theme of his presentation was creating biopolymers with biotechnology focussing on Corbion’s route to FDCA (a precursor for polyethylene furanoate) and lactic acid (a precursor for polylactic acid) from sustainable resources. Søren Kristiansen, LEGO, gave a talk about LEGO’s approach to their 2030 sustainable materials challenge.

During presentations and tea break the participants had lively discussions. Before the closing of the day Mia Katharina Podlech, Plast Center Danmark, presented the first part of DMNs project on “bioplastics for technical applications”. The case concerned the thermal stability specifically mechanical recycling of polylactic acid. The presentation of the second part was given by peter Sommer Larsen, Technological Institute, and focused on the mechanical recycling of three bio-based technical plastics. Bio-based polyamides (PA 4.10 and PA 6.10) and bio-based polycarbonate (isosorbide-PC).

In the subsequent evaluation participants expressed the opinion that the seminar had been interesting and instructive with a good balance between the topics presented: from general to very specific cases.

A full version of the article in Danish and pictures are available here >