Plastics have dramatically changed the way we live, allowing us to fabricate new and innovative tools, containers and even replaceable body parts like hips and knees, while also spawning a host of undesirable by-products, including nonbiodegradable trash and pollution from fossil fuels such as coal, oil and gas. Now an emerging industry is trying to polish plastic's environmentally tarnished image by using waste products such as carbon dioxide and Escherichia coli bacteria to make biodegradable and renewable polymers.

This trend continued Wednesday when Novomer, Inc., an Ithaca, N.Y.–based company that manufactures ecofriendly plastics and polymers using CO₂, announced that it had raised $6.6 million in a fund-raising campaign (led by venture capital firms Physic Ventures in San Francisco and Flagship Ventures in Cambridge, Mass.). The company says it plans to use the new monies to expand both its production capacity and development efforts. This new cash infusion comes on the heels of small business grants from the National Science Foundation ($500,000) and the U.S. Department of Energy ($100,000) for continued development of its polymerization catalyst systems.

The key ingredients in Novomer's polymer-making process are metallic catalysts, such as beta-diiminate zinc acetate, which bond greenhouse-gas causing molecules such as CO₂, as well as carbon monoxide and other renewable materials, to liquid epoxides.

"Plastics are more important right now than at any other point in history," says Cornell University chemistry professor Geoffrey Coates, Novomer's co-founder and chief scientific officer, who notes that industry has produced more plastic every year of the past 50 years. This includes not just commodities like milk jugs or CD cases, but also specialized biomedical devices such as heart stents and emerging technology such as solar cells. Whereas surgeons today may hold broken bones together with metal screws that subsequently must be removed after the break is healed, bioplastics hold the promise of surgical materials that serve the same purpose but safely degrade within the body negating further surgery.

Technology commercialization firm KensaGroup, LLC, formed Novomer in 2004 based on renewable polymer research conducted by a team of Cornell researchers. The group was led by Coates and former graduate student Scott Allen, a Novomer co-founder who is now the company's director of research and development.

Prior to its work, polymers based on biological materials were possible but they were more of a novelty because the prohibitive manufacturing cost discouraged large-scale production. Novomer's process is different from other bioplastic-making efforts in several ways, primarily because it is done at room temperature using relatively little energy, says company president, Charles Hamilton. This means that fossil fuels are not burned during the process. "We combine liquid epoxides with carbon dioxide in a reactor that's like a pressure cooker," he says. "Throw in a catalyst, and those two parts come together like a zipper. You create a very long chain of epoxides bonded to carbon dioxide."

7 Comments

1. 1. ridelo 09:33 AM 11/14/07

   And from what is the epoxide made?

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2. 2. coltakashi 10:31 PM 11/14/07

   It's all well and good to find ways of turning waste materials into useful products rather than discarding them. However, biodegradable plastics are designed to return carbon dioxide and methane to the atmosphere. Solid wastes that go into a landfill should be as inert as rock, so they do not release toxic chemicals in inks and dies into groundwater and greenhouse gases (including potentially explosive methane) into the air. We need waste in landfills to be firm land that can be used for parks and golf courses, not create sinkholes. We have no shortage of land for landfills. The burning of waste (which Waste Management touts in its TV ads) releases greenhouse gases and particulate pollution and leaves behind toxic residues. We need to grow up from the Earth Day myths of 1970 and be smart with waste.

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3. 3. dannyuchiha 08:09 AM 7/3/08

   The upside from this new product is the fact that less land for landfill is required. On the long run, it might beneficial for our children or grandchildren. However, it is not very useful for today's problems. We still need to cut our CO2 and other greenhouse gas production.

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4. 4. jack.123 04:57 PM 10/26/09

   Correct me, but isn't there a huge amount of plastic in the middle of the Pacific just waiting to be picked up,and recycled.

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5. 5. 4TimesAYear 01:24 PM 10/26/10

   "an emerging industry is trying to polish plastic's environmentally tarnished image by using waste products such as carbon dioxide and Escherichia coli bacteria to make biodegradable and renewable polymers."
   
   False premise. Plastic is already biodegradable. Anyone who thinks it isn't ought to park their car in the sun for a few years. Trust me, it doesn't take long for it to turn to powder.
   

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6. 6. 4TimesAYear in reply to coltakashi 01:35 PM 10/26/10

   Plastic is already biodegradable (try using your leaf filled garbage bags for insulation around the foundation of your house and see what happens when you pick it up in the Spring)
   There is no rhyme or reason to landfill law. What I find odd is that leaves, brush, etc., is not allowed in landfills, but lumber is. Here, our city also burns brush when it could be used to build up the soil and help speed up the decomposition rate of other garbage. They also allow human waste in landfills (used baby diapers) That's just not safe.

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7. 7. ellahaskin 03:57 PM 11/19/12

   I love that the adults of the world are starting to care a little bit about the environment. My generation grew up totally spoiled and throwing all kinds of recyclable materials in the trash. I think there are more things we can do to be cost-efficient and help the environment. I know that this past year we had <a href="http://www.enerliv.ca/home-insulation-services.php">insulation</a> put into our home to keep our heat in. Honestly, I think being more efficient the first go around will help big time in the long run. But I love that we are now trying to recycle pollution and turn it back into plastic that we can re-use. Too cool.

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