SusMaTech

Inspiration  

Here at Susmatech we want to celebrate chemical technologies that are not just our own.  These are wins for everyone and the planet.  Here you can find some inspiration for doing sustainable chemistry, maybe help you and your business make life on earth a little better. 

Here are some good resources:

Sustainable Chemistry and Engineering (ACS journal)

Bio-preferred.gov (a resource to find chemical intermediates)

Posted Feb 2, 2024

Here are some companies I thought would be interesting to this audience.  I have no affiliation with them, just hope they can make some big inroads on non-renewables.

Emery Oleochemicals has a variety of biobased materials, such as intermediates (fatty acids, glycerin, etc), but also raws for formulators (esters, polyols, etc), and products for end-use (antifog, Biopesticide, etc).  It's a good to see how biobased materials can be successful in a wide range of different markets.  Kudos to them!

Origin Materials, a relatively new company, has some exciting technologies... based on furfural chemistry (typically made from sugars), they can make routes to products like Xylene, PET, and variety of related materials.  There is a lot of excitement in furfural chemistry space.. in Europe and China.  Good luck to them as they sort out the details and scaleup!  Looks like they have some end customer pull from PET/Pepsi.  We are rooting for you!  

Vertec BioSolvents and   Astrobio have been developing plant based solvents for many years.  They have biobased blends of various components, such as methyl soyate, ethanol, ethyl lactate, and limonene that hit a variety of applications.  I might need to try out their degreaser formula for cleaning my bike chain!  I wonder if anyone is making dry-erase markers with these solvents?

The impressive scale of the production area they are building at UPM BioChemicals for Lignin and ethylene glycol products (from wood) is truely inspiring!  

Posted Jan 31, 2024

As we accumulate more data about global warming, it's becoming more obvious for the need for low carbon solutions and carbon taxes.  We need solutions fast... in industries that move slow.  Businesses should not be required by law to look past quarterly profits to understand that climate change is going to get very real for us in our lifetimes.  Lets get to work and get the carbon out of the atmosphere!

Posted Nov 10, 2023 by Russ Stapleton

The Castor bean oil is a showcase for sustainable chemicals.  Lets learn more about this fascinating  non-edible bean and review some of the  products that have been developed from Castor oil.  

The figure below shows the triglyceride (more composition details here) , the primary acid and ester, and the resulting chemicals from their decomposition.  There are many possible derivatives from these, too many to note here.  Check out the wiki pages on 11-Aminoundecanoic acid and OrgSynth (DOI: 10.15227/orgsyn.001.0061) for 2-octanol.  If you are a polymer chemist you would see that both sabacic acid (the C10 diacid) and the 10-undecanoic acid are both precursors to making polyamides (aka Nylon), which in fact is what Arkema supplies in their Oleris business.  Maybe in the future I will post about how polyamides are not only fantastic fibers, but also how recyclable they are.

Before we get to the fun stuff, lets have a  brief supply chain conversation.

There are significant challenges when considering sustainable plant based chemicals.  At a high level, we need to define the boundaries of acceptability by looking at the impacts.  Consider these:

Sourcing and supply chain managements in the chemical industry is a relatively easy process of quoting, sales contract, and delivery.... right?!!  What could possibly go wrong.  Rarely are there questions about who/what are behind the curtains.  Answering those questions about ethics or carbon/energy footprint is extremely difficult, layered with complications from language or maybe cultural corruption.  Would you even believe the answers?  Certifications to the rescue!  Yes and no.  Ultimately certification tools come down to building trust.  And trust in chemicals (like anything else) is about being transparent and real communications.  Lets do some homework and listen to what people are saying and not saying about Castor oil.

Lets start with this video below... it's a bit old, but great!  I have no idea who this group is (and we hope immediate/lasting peace  everyone in Gaza), but what they've shown is:

The technoeconomics is a little surprising to me, where the target application is biofuel, that is methyl rincinolate.  Competing with fossil fuels is difficult economically, when most fuels are simply pumped out of the ground and the combustion waste CO2 is not factored in.  But the group who made the video was clearly trying, with scalability in mind!  Unlike fossil fuels, Castor oil is a relatively pure fatty acid structure/composition, where refinement into  a diverse and pure chemical streams is top down (fossil fuel based chemicals are bottom up).  Maybe Castor oil is a better chemical feedstock than a biofuel.

So what questions should we be asking... carbon footprint/energy balance?  Where does the unused plant bits end up?  Seasonal or pest factors?  Limits of transposing to other regions?  Is there any market distortions from seed or water supply? Ultimately we have to figure out who wins, and in a sustainable and stable business ensure that earth and stakeholders in the process are treated fairly.  

More to come.

Possible topics for future posts: