Chemicals and sustainability are not two words you’d automatically put in the same sentence. In fact, chemicals are often associated with pollution or toxicity. Many chemicals are made using fossil fuels and the processes needed to manufacture them often require huge amounts of energy.
And yet we rely on chemicals for almost everything we consume, from our clothes to our houses and even the food we eat. Chemicals are essential for curing diseases, for improving crop yields and they’re a huge part of the economy – experts predict that the global chemicals market will be worth $5.1tn (£4tn) by 2020.
So how can we ensure that we gain all the benefits chemicals offer, sustainably? That’s a question the industry is working hard to answer. One solution is to move towards bio-based products that reduce our reliance on fossil fuels.
“Whenever you can find a way to make a product we are making today in a bio-based manner, without deteriorating any of the other properties that material had, you’re onto a winner,” says Dr Peter Nieuwenhuizen, head of specialty chemicals research and development at AkzoNobel, a chemicals, paints and coatings manufacturer.
“The problem is, it’s actually very difficult. If you take thickeners that we are using to thicken paint, for example, those products are the result of 50 years of research; they have been optimised, they are really good. To find a bio-based alternative that is also really good and not also really expensive ... that is difficult.”
Innovation is key to future-proofing the chemicals industry, which is why earlier this year AkzoNobel launched Imagine Chemistry, a challenge which will fund the ideas of the future in some of the industry’s key problem areas.
Cellulose-based alternatives to synthetics
Many products rely on synthetic additives to improve their performance - to help make paint stick, dry mortar out and keep food fresh, for example.
Recent years have brought great advancements in the use of cellulose, which is the basic building block of many plants and has proven to be very effective as a thickener for paints and other substances. Not only can it be harvested from renewable sources such as well-managed forests, its derivatives are biodegradable and often safer than synthetic alternatives. The issue that remains is cost.
Photograph: inoc/Getty Images
Emile Trottier, AkzoNobel’s global research, development and innovation director, leads the search for start-ups who can provide the missing piece of the puzzle. He explains: “In my opinion, the real game changer in this field would be to find an affordable, renewable source of cellulose which can be applied at an industrial scale. To find it, we need to consider all potential sources. For example, bamboo grows faster than wood – can we use it to thicken paint?”
Revolutionising plastics recycling
Around 7-8% of the oil and gas produced each year goes towards manufacturing plastics. With large amounts of plastics being disposed of within less than a year, the implications on the environment are huge.
Plastics can be reprocessed into other products, their chemical components can be recovered for reuse, or they can be burned as fuel, recovering their energy value if nothing else.
But recycling is littered with inefficiency, from the need to rely on consumers to sort their waste, to the amount of energy, water and other resources needed to complete the process. Then there are the challenges that come with segregating and reprocessing plastics; their varying properties mean the end product is often downgraded.
Innovation at each stage of the recycling process has the potential to revolutionise the environmental impact of plastics.
Bio-based sources of ethylene
Ethylene and ethylene oxides are key ingredients in paints, detergents and personal care products. Millions of tonnes of ethylene are produced each year, and virtually all of it comes from natural gas or petroleum. Finding new ways of producing bio-based sources of ethylene will be key to creating a more sustainable chemicals industry.
Dale Steichen, chief scientist at AkzoNobel, says: “Currently, small volumes of ethylene and ethylene oxide are produced from ethanol, harvested from crops such as corn. Unfortunately, this method is inefficient as you take a big molecule, ethanol, and then strip most of the atoms away, leaving ethylene. On a large scale this results in high costs and inefficiencies.”
Steichen believes finding a direct route from raw materials to ethylene catalysis would be a possible game changer in the industry, opening the door to replace oil and gas with renewable raw materials.
Bio-based and biodegradable surfactants and thickeners
The majority of our detergents and cleaning products rely on the addition of surfactants – which help remove dirt by lowering the surface tension of water – and thickeners. Finding bio-based or biodegradable versions that are also non-toxic would go a long way towards making these products more sustainable.
As such, scientists are looking into the various components of each product to see where innovation could impact sustainability.
Many of those currently on the market rely on ethylene oxide for their production. Ulf Schröder, R&D manager at AkzoNobel, is looking for start-ups who can think outside the box to help tackle this challenge, explaining: “We need to think differently. Ethylene oxides are just one building block needed to make surfactants. Amino acids, tartaric acid, hemicellulose and so on would be new bio-based building blocks that may give us new surfactants with unique properties.”
Wastewater-free chemical sites
Chemical production often results in large volumes of wastewater containing salt and organic material, which needs to be removed for the water to be reusable.
Current technologies typically use bacteria to break down the organic material, but the wastewater needs to be diluted with clean water to very low salt concentrations to do this, making the process resource intensive and inefficient.
What’s more, the salty wastewater could actually be a valuable input for the chemical industry, since the salt it contains can be used to make chloride, the starting point for many chemical processes.
Auke Talma, who leads the search at AkzoNobel for innovations in wastewater treatment says, “If we find a way to either break down the organic material in the wastewater without dilution or efficiently filter out the salt, we could close the production loop and eliminate wastewater altogether.”
Finding sustainable solutions
To date, more than 200 ideas for sustainable solutions were submitted for the Imagine Chemistry challenge. AkzoNobel will now select 20 finalists to attend a three-day event in June at the company’s principal research facility in Deventer, the Netherlands.
“We have been very impressed by the number and quality of the submissions,” said Thierry Vanlancker, AkzoNobel’s executive committee member responsible for specialty chemicals. “This confirms our belief that there is tremendous potential even in mature chemistries. We are looking forward to working with the eventual winners to scale up their ideas and turn them into a commercial reality with real global impact.”
