Plastic Future and Biotechnology

The reliance of fossil fuels has been challenged by lower cost and renewable sources that are more environmentally friendly. The traditional chemical plant has met serious competition from green plants. Many monomers are now made via fermentation, using low-cost sugars as feedstock. Some of the commodity monomers are under siege by chemicals extracted from biomass. Monomer production has been expanded to include many more monomers from nature. 

Worldwide suppliers with bioengineering capabilities are displacing established polymers with cost-effective and higher performing plastics. An explosion of novel polymers has been made by enzymatic control. The use of enzymes for polymerization has drastically altered the landscape of polymer chemistry. Processors can request specific properties for each application as opposed to the usual making do with what is available. The supplier can deliver to the processor desired properties requested. 

There are methods to manipulate the backbones of polymers in several areas that include control of microstructures such as crystallinity, precise control of molecular weight, copolymerization of additives (flame retardants), antioxidants, stabilizers, etc.), and direct attachment of pigments. A major development with all this type action has been to provide significant reduction in the variability of plastic performances, more processes can run at room temperature and atmospheric pressure, and 80% energy cost reductions. 

Designing has never been easy in any material, particularly plastics, because there are so many. Plastics practically provide more types with the many variations that are available than any other material. Of the more than 35,000 different plastics worldwide, only a few hundred are used in large quantities. Unfortunately, some designers view plastics as a single material because they are not aware of all the types available (Appendix A, PLASTICS DESIGN TOOLBOX). 

Plastics are families of materials each with their own special advantages. The major consideration for a designer is to analyze what is required as regards to performances and develop a logical selection procedure from what is available. 

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