TNO: Emerging breakthrough: plastic from plants

The number of chemical products like plastic and fuels that can be made from biomass is increasing rapidly, and preferably sourced from raw materials that are unsuitable for human consumption. TNO is coordinating a major four-year European research project to realise this, the EU BioConSepT project.
The project has been going for a year and the first results have been presented at the Green Polymer Chemistry conference in Cologne. TNO has also succeed in modifying fungi such that they produce appreciably more acids and then separate and purify these in an energy-efficient and cost-effective way. The next step is to develop a method to remove the substances directly during the production process. The enzymes and micro-organisms stop working after a substance has been produced (News Item TNO, 23 April 2013).