High-Yield Path to Making Key Ingredient for Plastic, Xylene, from Biomass

[ScienceRocks]

High-Yield Path to Making Key Ingredient for Plastic, Xylene, from Biomass
ScienceDaily ^ | Apr. 30, 2012 | NA

High-yield path to making key ingredient for plastic, xylene, from biomass

A team of chemical engineers led by Paul J. Dauenhauer of the University of Massachusetts Amherst has discovered a new, high-yield method of producing the key ingredient used to make plastic bottles from biomass. The process is inexpensive and currently creates the chemical p-xylene with an efficient yield of 75-percent, using most of the biomass feedstock, Dauenhauer says.

The research is published in the journal ACS Catalysis.

Dauenhauer, an assistant professor of chemical engineering at UMass Amherst, says the new discovery shows that there is an efficient, renewable way to produce a chemical that has immediate and recognizable use for consumers. He says the plastics industry currently produces p-xylene from petroleum and that the new renewable process creates exactly the same chemical from biomass.

'You can mix our renewable chemical with the petroleum-based material and the consumer would not be able to tell the difference," Dauenhauer says.

Consumers will already know the plastics made from this new process by the triangular recycling label "#1" on plastic containers. Xylene chemicals are used to produce a plastic called PET (or polyethylene terephthalate), which is currently used in many products including soda bottles, food packaging, synthetic fibers for clothing and even automotive parts.

The new process uses a zeolite catalyst capable of transforming glucose into p-xylene in a three-step reaction within a high-temperature biomass reactor. Dauenhauer says this is a major breakthrough since other methods of producing renewable p-xylene are either expensive (e.g., fermentation) or are inefficient due to low yields.

A key to the success of this new process is the use of a catalyst that is specifically designed to promote the p-xylene reaction over other less desirable reactions. Dauenhauer says his research colleagues, professors Wei Fan of UMass Amherst and Raul Lobo of the University of Delaware, designed the catalyst. After...

 

[waltky]

Obama's man in favor of renewable energy tax credits...

U.S. Energy Chief Pushes for Extension of Tax Credits for Renewables
5/16/2012 - U.S. Secretary of Energy Steven Chu, in Denver on Wednesday, called on Congress to act on extending clean-energy tax credits, which he said will help American companies create jobs and produce clean, renewable power.

"America can't afford to miss out on the clean- energy opportunity," Chu said. "We have an opportunity to create a second Industrial Revolution that will provide clean energy and put us on a path to a sustainable world." Chu was in Denver to address the World Renewable Energy Forum. The week-long biennial meeting is being attended by about 3,000 renewable-energy representatives, advocates and policymakers from 66 countries. The wind-energy tax credit has stumbled in Congress despite wide support among Republicans and Democrats in Colorado. But the production-tax-credit extension — which costs $4.1 billion over 10 years and includes some other renewables such as geothermal — has repeatedly failed in the U.S. Senate.

A delay in the tax extension, say members of Congress and members of the industry, could cripple the clean-energy manufacturing industry. Colorado has 1,600 people working for wind-turbine maker Vestas in two manufacturing plants, one in Brighton and one in Windsor, jobs the company says could be lost without the extension. Colorado "is among the leaders in installed solar capacity, and it's a hub for clean-energy manufacturers from GE to Vestas," Chu said. In conjunction with the forum, the Colorado Renewable Energy Society is showcasing electric cars, motorcycles and trucks at "Electric Avenue" at 14th and California streets.

Brandon Williams, chairman of CRES Electric Avenue, said the expo is about fostering electric- vehicle expansion in the Rockies — to promote "mass adoption" of new vehicle technology. "The goal is to reduce petroleum consumption and clean up Colorado's air," Williams said. "I think the (new vehicle) technology is great," he said. "This is all about making Colorado a cleaner state to live in. That is an important value for people in Colorado. Electric vehicles give consumers an option." Also speaking Wednesday at the forum was Santiago Seage, chief executive of Abenoga Solar, an Spanish solar-power company, with its U.S. headquarters in Lakewood. He said renewable energy "is even more important" in a world in which the controversial drilling practice of hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, has become prominent.

The focus on fracking, in which water and trace chemicals are pumped into wells to break up rock and free up oil and gas, has diverted attention from the development of renewable-energy sources, Seage said. Political analysts have begun to use energy as a battlefield, he said, "and as a result ... we end up seeing R&D investments going down, we end up seeing the focus on transition technologies that are not the solution and we all end up compromising in technology." "That will not solve the problem. Some of you saw this in the late '70s and the '80s," he said. "We cannot let this happen again."

Source

 

[Old Rocks]

Two things here. One, the GOP will oppose anything that might look good for the President, no matter how beneficial to the nation. Two, the GOP has huge owe-me's to the fossil fuel corperations.