An investigation into the utilization of depolymerization for the creation of feedstock is part of the program.
Fluence Analytics, a Stafford, Texas-based venture capital-backed business with experience in continuous polymer and biopharma analytics and process optimization, has unveiled a circular economy strategy that is supported by a research project on phased depolymerization.
The new initiative begins with an analysis of the circular economy’s technology and market, with an emphasis on the transformation of post-use plastic into reusable raw materials.
On the initiative, Fluence Analytics has collaborated with its academic research partner, the Energy Institute at Tulane University, as well as one of its investors and clients, Diamond Edge Ventures, the business venture capital division of Mitsubishi Chemical Holdings Corp.
According to the organization, the study has already offered insights into the circular economy, including a thorough overview of the technologies that are being employed in the field. Fluence Analytics has created a road plan for later phases of activities aimed at implementing analytics and control solutions to enable the economical scale-up of novel depolymerization technologies using these insights. Technical proof of concept is the project’s next stage.
One of many suggested solutions for a more sustainable future is to break down plastic materials into feedstocks that are then used to make new products. According to the company, this will eventually lessen the amount of plastic pollution in the environment on Earth.
“We always envisioned enabling more sustainable manufacture of polymer materials back when we were still incubating on Tulane’s campus. According to Alex Reed, co-founder, president, and CCO of Fluence Analytics, “the possibility of directly participating in the circular economy via new depolymerization technologies is a completely new dimension for us.
ACOMP, our real-time polymer analytics solution that boosts operational efficiency, has already made progress toward that goal. Our company’s objective is driven by the opportunity we currently have to collaborate with the industry to completely shut the loop in polymer production, both in terms of process control and renewable feedstocks.
The process by which polyethylene is changed back into ethylene is known as depolymerization. The benefit of returning to the chemical building block, according to Fluence Analytics, is the capacity to use existing resources to polymerize the monomers back into polymer with the attributes of newly generated material.
The company claims that despite being extremely beneficial for a variety of applications, mechanical recycling faces a number of difficulties because of additives and changed properties of reprocessed material.
According to Eric Smith, associate director of the Tulane University Energy Institute, “With the worldwide drive to reduce plastic waste and to recycle valuable chemical feedstocks, the joint effort with Fluence Analytics should impact not only the plastics industry in Louisiana but in the world at large.”
