Polymers carbon dioxide emissions

Another reason to focus on the sustainability of packaging polymers arises from the fact that consumption and subsequent disposal of petrochemical-based resources leads to increased carbon dioxide emissions [7], with concomitant effects on global warming. Thus, continued increase in petrochemical production requires an increased exploitation of non-conventional sources, suggesting market opportunities for new, renewables-based IWSPs. 

According to the carbon neutrality concept, resources that have their origin in products of photosynthesis are synthesized from carbon dioxide and their use is not counted as carbon dioxide emission. Under this concept, although people should avoid overspending forestry resources without planting, much fossil fuel use can be covered by renewable resources, achieving reduction of carbon dioxide emission. The substitution from fossil fuel resources to renewable fuel resources may be easy, e.g. most gasoline can be substituted by ethanol and most fossil diesel can be substituted by biodiesel. The substitution for polymer materials, however, is not so simple because of the necessity of polymers with a variety of physical properties in industrial applications and therefore the necessity of a variety of resources for polymer production. If all the polymers used in the world were limited to polyethylene, polypropylene, and polystyrene, the situation would be similar to that of fuels but in fact it is not the case. 

Selection of raw materials for adhesives is very important to reduce environmental loads. At first, the raw materials should be environment fnendly. Synthetic polymers have relatively larger energy consumption in this production process than other materials such as fillers, including alumina powders, silica aerogels, caldum carbonate or talc consisting of minerals. Therefore, the composition of an adhesive is influential to the total environmental loads. In addition, if an adhesive is burned in the disposal process of the product bonded with it, carbon dioxide is emitted. As seen above, the presence of fillers can help to reduce the carbon dioxide emission because the portion of polymer in the adhesive decreases. 

The basic research in the future should be oriented towards novel materials for use in carbon dioxide as a solvent. These materials may have important applications in the synthesis of polymers, pharmaceuticals and other commodity chemicals, in the formation of thin films and foams, in coatings and extracts, and in the manufacture of microelectronic circuits. The full deployment of these applications would result in significant reductions in both volatile emissions and aqueous- and organic liquid wastes in manufacturing operations. 

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