Recently in studies and reports Category

My colleague Simon Robinson noted the increasing hits on ICB's bisphenol-A (BPA) chemical profile online, which was published last year in October. Last week, it generated over 1300 hits. Barbara Ortner, another colleague and author of the Chemicals Confidential blog, dubbed BPA as the current most hated chemical as it is constantly splashed through the news from various studies indicating it's health/environmental risks (or lack thereof from counter studies).

Here are some of the recent ones that came out on the news as well as comments from the American Chemistry Council (ACC) on these findings:

• Consumer Reports Study Detected BPA in Some Canned Foods (see ACC comment)
  

• An investigation from Physicians for Social Responsibility (PSR), American Nurses Association (ANA) and Health Care Without Harm (HCWH) revealed that the chemicals BPA, phthalates, PBDEs and PFCs are found in the bodies of health care professionals who participated in the study.(see ACC comment)
  

• High levels of workplace exposure to BPA may increase the risk of reduced sexual function in men, according to a Kaiser Permanente study. (see ACC comment)
  

• A study from the National Institute of Health Sciences (NIEHS) found a link between maternal exposure to BPA in early pregnancy and the behaviour of female children up to the age of two years. (see ACC comment)
  
  

The ACC noted that the researchers of this study acknowledged that their results are not straightforward.

"It appears that the researchers selectively excluded data, eliminating certain subjects from the analysis, in order to strengthen their conclusion. Even the phraseology of the paper is more sensationalistic than scientific." - ACC

The U.S. bio-plastics market accounted for approximately $1 billion in sales in 2007 and is expected to reach $10 billion by 2020, according to bioplastic producer Cereplast.

The company notes estimates pointing to bio-plastics capturing up to 30% of the total US plastics market within 10 years. Cereplast said that algae-based bioplastic, of which the company is currently developing, will open up a whole new source of feedstock and result in a broad range of new applications.

Consulting firm Freedonia, meanwhile, estimated that global demand for bioplastics in 2008 was 200,000 metric tons and is expected to increase to 900,000 metric tons in 2013, valued at $2.6bn.

Bioplastic demand in North America last year was estimated at 58,000 MT while Western Europe was 77,000 MT, Asia/Pacific at 58,000, and the rest at 7,000 MT. Aggregate growth rate for global bioplastic demand between 2008 and 2013 is expected at 35%.

Also check out the blog's recent post about a bioplastic study from the European Bioplastics association. Lots of good information in that study.

Finally, in another bioplastic news, I received an email from my colleague Will Beacham about a Belgian bioplastic company Futerro - a 50/50 joint venture established in September 2007 by Galactic and Total Petrochemicals, starting up its polylactic acid bioplastics demo unit in Escanaffles.

The 1,500 tonnes/year pilot plant will be used to test and improve the company's bioplastic process during an internal evaluation, which is expected to last around six months. Futerro expects to soon offer a full range of products made from lactic acid, including lactide, oligomers and PLA polymers for the packaging market, especially food packaging.

A new study from the European Bioplastics and the European Polysaccharide Network of Excellence (EPNOE) estimated that substitution potential of up to 90% of the total consumption of plastics by bio-based polymers are technically possible.

Still, that estimate will not be fulfilled in the near future because of low oil price, high production costs and restricted production capacity of biomass-based polymers, researchers of the study concluded.

2007 global bioplastic capacity (at 360,000 metric tonnes) is said to be only 0.3% of the global plastic production, which is dominated by petrochemical plastics. The bioplastic market, however, experienced a 38% growth rate from 2003 to 2007. European growth rate was said to be as high as 48%.

Standard polymers like polyethylene, polypropylene, PVC or PET, as well as high-performance polymers like polyamide or polyester have already been been totally or partially substituted by their renewable raw materials equivalents.

Based on recent company announcements the production capacity of bio-based plastics is projected to increase from 360,000 tons in 2007 to about 2.3 million tons by 2013, corresponding to an annual growth of 37%.

"Important major projects were delayed in the years 2008 and 2009 due to the financial and economic crisis. Despite the still uncertain data, we deem such studies to be very essential. The role that lightweight conventional plastics played in the past, substituting durable materials like iron and steel in vast products, could soon be taken over by bio-based plastics. As the study shows, the potential is enormous," says Hasso von Pogrell, Managing Director of European Bioplastics.

The study has a lot of good information about starch plastics, cellulosic polymers, polylactic acid (PLA) polymers, PTT from biobased propanediol, biobased polyamides, polyhydroxyalkanoates (PHAs), biobased polyethylene and PVC from bio-PE, and other emerging biobased thermoplastics.

FYI. Some recent news on bioplastics that I was not able to post:

• DuPont launches first product using Plantic material

• Plaxica raises £1 million to develop next generation biopolymers

• Johnson & Johnson initiates the production of packages made from green resin

• Cereplast expands into the 200 million consumer Brazilian market with its compostable biodegradable plastics

• Plastic Trees: Part of the Energy Solution? - SPI's Business Blog
  

Green schools = Productive and healthy mind for students + Extra money for schools. This was the message sent last month at BASF's High Performance Buildings for Education summit held in New York City.

While construction chemical companies are indeed seeing great business potential in growing green buildings trend, there is no doubt (as seen on different case presentations that day) that the education sector will benefit greatly from making school buildings eco-friendly, energy-efficient, and sustainably designed.

According to BASF, the timing for long-term investment in school infrastructure is ripe because of the large federal economic stimulus plan which is providing schools with $90bn. The company said the summit was aimed at providing information on current construction chemicals technology available to retrofit or build green schools.

High-performance green schools in the US is said to spend approximately $85/student in energy costs while conventional schools spend $150/student.

BASF added that upfront installation expenses in constructing high-performance buildings are usually just 1-2% above conventional school buildings.

"In fact, it lowers the total cost of ownership when you factor in reduction in energy costs, water use and other operational costs by implementing sustainable design and solutions to the building's construction," said Jack Armstrong, leader, construction markets for BASF North America.

ICIS Chemical Business (the magazine I work for) published this week its automotive issue and most of the topics seem to congregate on making automobiles green via fuel efficiency and use of renewable fuels.

Andy Brice wrote "The Weighting Game" which talked about innovative chemical products (an example is biobased engineering plastics) that reduce the weight of vehicles, and thus making them more economical and reduces emissions.

Consultants from PricewaterhouseCoopers wrote about the new CAFE (Corporate Average Fuel Economy) standards being recommended by the EPA, which calls for a new minimum average fuel economy requirements of 35.5 miles/gallon for vehicles by 2016 compared to the current 27.5 mpg. The change won't be cheap they said.

Ryan Hickman tells a story about the cash-for-clunkers auto stimulus program in the US (and worldwide), how they affected sales of new automobiles and down the road, demand for automotive chemicals and materials.

There must be something in the US wind energy market that attracts big oil and energy firm BP.

Last month, BP said it will focus its wind energy portfolio in the US while at the same time divesting its wind power interests in India. BP's subsidiary, BP Energy India Private Limited (BPEIPL), which owns and operates three wind farms in India with a total generating capacity of approximately 100 megawatts (MW), was sold for a total cash-free, debt-free enterprise value of around $95 million to Green Infra Limited.

BP's US wind energy portfolio now includes 100 projects, with a total potential generating capacity of up to 20,000 MW.

According to the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA), U.S. wind energy installed in the second quarter was 1,210 megawatts (MW) of new power generating capacity, bringing the total added this year to just over 4,000 MW.

Total U.S. wind power generating capacity to date is 29,440 MW. The state posting the fastest growth in the 2nd quarter was Missouri, where wind power installations expanded by 90%, according to AWEA.

Pennsylvania and South Dakota ranked second and third in terms of growth rate in the second quarter, expanding by 28% and 21% respectively.

Also in the second quarter, 3 wind turbine and turbine component manufacturing facilities were opened, four facilities were expanding, and eight new facilities were announced, said AWEA.

Unfortunately, the economic recession have impacted wind turbine component manufacturing this year. AWEA said many existing supply chain companies have stopped hiring or have furloughed employees due to the slowdown in contracts for wind turbines. Wind turbine component manufacturing investment was one of the bright spots in the economy in 2008, with 55 facilities added, expanded or announced that year. In the first half of this year, only up to 20 facilities were opened, expanded and or announced for investment.

The US, however, is not the only country affected. NextGen Research said the global recession dealt a glancing blow to the wind power industry in 2009 by forcing many developers to cancel or delay projects. The industry is expected to rebound sharply next year as credit markets thaw and the flow of capital resumes.

A virtual press conference yesterday from Cleantech Group and Deloitte announced that venture capital (VC) investments for clean technologies in the third quarter of this year overtook investments for (medical) biotechnology and IT.

Cleantech group defines clean technology as a diverse range of products, services and processes that are intended to reduce or eliminate negative ecological impacts while at the same improving the productive and responsible use of natural resources at lower costs and with improved performance.

Green chemistry, along with industrial biotechnology is included in their scope of analysis under "MATERIALS" although Cleantech and their partner Deloitte do not really cover these areas that much except for biofuels (pity...).

Anyway, clean technology is now said to be the largest US venture capital category with 27% share followed by biotechnology (24%), software (18%), and medical devices and equipment (17%).

Cleantech's preliminary report estimates 3Q 2009 VC investments in North America, Europe, China and India totaling $1.59bn across 134 companies, up 10% compared to 2Q but still down 42% from 3Q 2008. Most of the rebound this quarter is attributed to effects of government stimulus funding worldwide.

"The two largest venture deals (Solyndra and Tesla Motors) and the largest IPO (A123Systems) this quarter were all recipients of US government funding. Hundreds of millions of dollars in new venture funds this quarter are also evidence of investor confidence and momentum, including $1.1bn in two new funds by Khosla Ventures alone."

Non governmental organization World Growth strikes back at green groups such as Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth stating that their campaigns against the production of palm oil in Southeast Asia are damaging the economic and environmental benefits that this industry is giving to developing countries.

"Palm oil is a highly sustainable, energy efficient crop, generating nearly 10 times the energy it consumes -- compared to a ratio of 2.5 for soybeans and 3 for ripe oilseed. More importantly, its production has been commended by the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank as effective in alleviating poverty in the developing world," says World Growth Chairman Alan Oxley.

Seems to me that solar is shining bright again from the recent activities I saw the past few weeks. Interestingly enough, most of the news are coming from chemical companies that developed new materials to make photovoltaics more efficient and cheaper.

• BASF presented its Seluris range of cutting fluids products for cutting, etching, texturing and doping mono- and polycrystalline solar cells; and COLO-Fast® polyurethane casting system for more economical and secure framing of photovoltaic and solar panels.
  

• Dow Electronic Materials launched its ENLIGHT™ photovoltaic products, which the company said, increase solar cell efficiency and yield, improve device performance at low cost, and enable faster adoption of solar energy as a renewable energy alternative. The products are used on PV cleaning, imaging, texturizing, and metallization. Dow Chemical's adhesives and functional polymers business also presented its Adcote™ solventless adhesives for photovoltaic backsheet applications.
  

• Dow Corning says it just commercialized a breakthrough solar cell encapsulation technology that improves performance and effectively lowers the cost per kilowatt-hour of solar power. The PV-6100 Encapsulant Series are said to provide an ultra-transparent layer of protection for the solar cell in a panel and can replace incumbent technologies.

• Mitsubishi released its UJ6 series of high-efficiency polycrystalline photovoltaic modules. The new cells have four bus bars, said to be an improvement over traditional two bus bar cells, and are designed for medium- and large-scale commercial installations.

• Arkema presents its Apolhya™ Solar, a nanostructured thermoplastic polymer for the encapsulation of new generation photovoltaic modules. One key advantage is its processing, which requires no curing, says Arkema. The product saves time in the production process, while making end-of-life panels very easy to recycle.

• Wacker Chemie launched its TECTOSIL®, a plastic film designed for the encapsulation of photovoltaic modules, and is made out of a thermoplastic silicone elastomer that is pliable when heated, making it fast and easy to process. The company also showcased new silicones for PV applications from its ELASTOSIL® Solar product line.

• DSM says its KhepriCoat™ anti-reflective coating system has contributed to achieving the highest energy conversion ever of a full-size solar module.

Starting September 30, manufacturers, purchasers and government agencies can soon evaluate how green and sustainable plastics are via a new "Plastic Scorecard" developed by nonprofit group Clean Production Action (CPA) and sustainability consulting firm Pure Strategies.

The Scorecard rates plastics from F to A+ on a set of criteria that simultaneously advance sustainable raw materials, green chemistry and closed loop systems, according to CPA. The criteria for moving up the spectrum toward "preferred plastics" were selected to progressively increase the sustainability of the plastic at each stage of its lifecycle -- from feedstock production and manufacturing to use and disposal.

"The Scorecard is essentially a decision-making tool aimed at improving the design of plastic products," said CPA's Research Director Mark Rossi. "As more and more consumers demand products that do not include toxic chemicals, companies, governments and environmental organizations need a way to assess the environmental preferability of the various alternatives."