Replac­ing PET with PEF – An Ener­gy Effi­cient Solution

Recent­ly, a bal­ance study of ener­gy and green­house gas (GHG) was con­duct­ed over the man­u­fac­tur­ing of the bio­plas­tic poly­eth­yl­ene furandi­car­boxy­late (PEF) ini­ti­at­ing from fruc­tose based on corn. The pur­pose of the study was to exam­ine and inter­pret inves­ti­ga­tion­al data regard­ing the dehy­dra­tion via catal­y­sis of fruc­tose to an imi­ta­tion mod­el, uti­liz­ing the ASPEN Plus­mod­el­ing soft­ware. The imi­ta­tion mod­el pro­duced mass and ener­gy bal­ances were uti­lized as input for car­ry­ing out process chain analy­sis and weigh against the petro­chem­i­cal equiv­a­lent poly­eth­yl­ene tereph­tha­late (PET). Typ­i­cal­ly, PEF pro­duc­tion can be cat­e­go­rized into 3 parts : 

• Man­u­fac­tur­ing fruc­tose using corn starch,
• Con­vert­ing fruc­tose into Furan­ics and fol­low­ing revival and improve­ments ; and
• Oxi­diz­ing FDCA and poly­mer­iz­ing eth­yl­ene gly­col (EG) into PEF.

Pro­duc­ing PEF from fruc­tose can be bro­ken down into 6 steps : 

1. Pro­duc­ing corn starch using the Corn Wet Milling (CWM) process,
2. Con­vert­ing corn starch into fruc­tose as well as HFCS,
3. Con­vert­ing fruc­tose and HFCS into Furanics,
4. Reviv­ing and improv­ing the Furan­ics into HMF and its ethers,
5. Oxi­diz­ing HMF and its ethers into FDCA,
6. Poly­mer­iz­ing FDCA along with EG into PEF.

Con­vert­ing into Furanics

Fruc­tose and HFCS are mixed with a cat­a­lyst and a sol­vent con­sist­ing of water and methanol Both fruc­tose and HFCS are blend­ed along with a cat­a­lyst as well as a sol­vent that com­pris­es methanol and water. This mix­ture is poured into a Furan­ics reac­tor at soar­ing tem­per­a­tures (200 to 220°C).

Revival and Improvement

This sec­tion has about eight columns for dis­til­la­tion. Here, the pres­sure is grad­u­al­ly reduced to ease the revival of light-end prod­ucts. The first five are ded­i­cat­ed towards reviv­ing light-end ones, where­as, the rest of the three are used to upgrade and revive HMF and its ethers, and La and its ethers. The humins cre­at­ed dur­ing the con­ver­sion process set­tle at the bot­tom of the last dis­til­la­tion col­umn – thanks to their extreme boil­ing point.

CHP

The CHP unit con­sists of a boil­er oper­at­ing at atmos­pher­ic con­di­tions and a steam cycle. The CHP unit has a boil­er that works at sur­round­ing con­di­tions as well as a steam cycle. The steam cycle comprises : 

• Steam gen­er­a­tor for recov­er­ing heat,
• Con­denser,
• Water pump, and
• Three steam turbines.

On var­i­ous grounds, it has been proved that PEF is a way bet­ter solu­tion than PET. Often termed as the ​‘next gen­er­a­tion’ poly­ester, here are some key rea­sons why PEF is more ener­­gy-effi­­cient than PET :

Supe­ri­or Performance

PEF is known to serve as a bet­ter O₂ bar­ri­er, with 10 times greater improve­ment than PET. More­over, it has twice more pow­er­ful water bar­ri­er and 4 times more potent car­bon diox­ide bar­ri­er.

Ther­mal Stability

PEF has remark­able ther­mal sta­bil­i­ty than PET. Tg : ~88°C is approx­i­mate­ly 12°C greater than PET.

Mechan­i­cal Properties

PEF also has amaz­ing mechan­i­cal prop­er­ties. The ten­sile mod­u­lus of PEF is equiv­a­lent to 1.6* PET.

Reduced Car­bon Footprint

PEF has reduced car­bon foot­print rel­a­tive to PET. It pro­duces up to 70% reduced emis­sions of car­bon and 65% reduced NREU. Giv­en the cur­rent and future trends, more and more chem­i­cal com­pa­nies are explor­ing the ben­e­fits of FDCA and FDME for man­u­fac­tur­ing PEF plas­tic. We have been con­sis­tent­ly invest­ing in bio-based poly­mer man­u­fac­tur­ing to cre­ate a sus­tain­able future. Browse through our prod­ucts to find Fullerene C60, Methylpen­tanoic acid, Preg­nenolone Steroid Hor­mones etc. To place orders, call +1 (909)345 0760-31 now.