Page 42 - Plastics News July 2023

Avantium and SCGC aim to advance CO2-based Indonesia sets up living
polymers to pilot phase labs in the fight against

plastic pollution

n response to what has now
Ibeen described as a ‘plastic waste
emergency’, one of the world’s
worst plastic polluters, Indonesia,
is launching a string of living labs to
help people fight plastic pollution.
vantium N.V., a renewable chem- Avantium and SCGC have been work- The labs are an initiative of PISCES,
Aistry company headquartered ing together on PLGA since early a £3.8 million, three-and-a-half year
in Amsterdam, and SCG Chemicals 2023. Avantium has produced sam- project led by Brunel University in
Public Company Limited, a Thailand- ples of different PLGAs, which were the UK that has deployed an inter-
based integrated petrochemical in- then evaluated at SCGC’s Norner national multi-disciplinary team to
novations company have announced a AS facility. This led to the decision to create ‘hope spots’ in Indonesia’s
new partnership. The companies will establish a Joint Development Agree- battle against plastic waste. Set up
collaborate on the further develop- ment, under which the companies as a collaborative partnership, it
ment of CO2-based polymers with intend to further evaluate PLGA in brings academic researchers to-
the aim of bringing this to pilot scale. order to subsequently scale up pro- gether with business, industry, gov-
The partnership will build on Avan- duction of glycolic acid monomer and ernments, NGOs, and civil society
tium’s innovative Volta Technology PLGA polyester in the next two years to understand and manage the risks
platform, which uses electrochem- to a pilot plant with an indicative ca- posed by plastic pollution. The ini-
istry to convert CO2 to high-value pacity of 10 tonnes per annum. tiative supports Indonesia’s Coordi-
products and chemical building blocks “Over the past months, SCGC has nating Ministry of Maritime Affairs
such as glycolic acid. By combining assessed PLGA samples and we are and Investment’s 2025 goal of cut-
glycolic acid with lactic acid, Avantium impressed with the sustainability and ting plastic waste leakage into the
can produce polylactic-co-glycolic performance characteristics of this in- ocean by 70%.
acid (PLGA), a carbon-negative poly- novative material. We look forward
ester with an excellent barrier against to working together with Avantium The team’s approach involves mod-
elling the ‘leakage’ of waste from
the land into the oceans, and con-
firming the models with an exten-
sive fieldwork programme to gain a
clearer understanding of what the
economic, cultural and social rea-
oxygen and moisture and good me- in the years to come,”said Dr Sura- sons behind this leakage. This will
chanical properties. In addition, PLGA cha Udomsak, Chief Innovation Of- enable the development of specific
is recyclable, home compostable and ficer and Executive Vice President at interventions to tackle the problem.
marine degradable. SCGC.

42 PLASTICS NEWS July 2023