AIMPLAS project to boost sustainability in the Valencia Region

The CO2_2020 Project, developed by AIMPLAS, was created to respond the need to provide a second life to CO2 by embracing the circular economy principle of recovering industrial wastes. Research Scientist Sergio Sopeña explains.

With the Industrial Revolution and the advent of oil as an energy vector, the natural balance between greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide and methane, has gradually been altered to produce the current severe environmental emergency.

The deadline set by the European Union and Spain to reach net-zero greenhouse gas emissions is 2050. This highly ambitious goal, in addition to the very short time frame, has greatly impacted the number of projects implemented to revert this emergency climate situation through the capture and utilisation of carbon dioxide from human activities in industry, transport and other sectors.

The CO2_2020 Project, developed by AIMPLAS, was created to respond to the need to provide a second life to CO2 by embracing the circular economy principle of recovering industrial wastes and revalorising them to make new products. This project, supported by companies from Spain’s Valencian Community, including Laurentia, Keraben, Torrecid, Químicas Sanz and Quimacova, addresses this problem through three different strategies that involve the use of chemical and biotechnological separation and transformation technologies.

The CO2 molecule has great potential because it can be transformed into highly value-added products and materials. However, because it is the result of an industrial process, carbon dioxide is obtained in the presence of other by-products and impurities that avoid its direct application. Therefore, it is necessary to include a separation phase in the process.

Current CO2 separation technologies at industrial level are based on the use of liquid absorbents that capture the CO2 present in a gas mixture. However, the main disadvantage of this technique is the energy required to release the previously captured CO2. The CO2_2020 Project’s research area on separation, in collaboration with the Polymer Technology and Sustainability (POTS) group at the Universitat de València, modifies polymeric membranes so they can purify a gas mixture through selective separation of the target gas, thus improving the efficiency and sustainability of the separation process compared with other technologies.

Once CO2 has been purified, it can be processed and transformed using two different strategies: chemical processing with the appropriate catalysts and biotechnological processing with cyanobacteria strains. Chemical transformation aims to convert CO2 into fully renewable plastic precursors such as succinic acid and 2,5-Furandicarboxylic acid (which is the raw material required for the synthesis of polyethylene furanoate (PEF)) in order to replace non-renewable precursors on the market such as terephthalic acid, the main component of polyethylene terephthalate (PET). In this case, the materials developed in the CO2_2020 Project combine a natural component and industrial waste such as CO2 with the objective of improving process sustainability and maintaining the properties of the original material.

Biotechnological transformation in the CO2_2020 Project is carried out in conjunction with Darwin Bioprospecting and pursues the same goal as chemical transformation (i.e. producing plastic materials more efficiently and sustainably), but with a completely different approach. In this case, carbon fixation and subsequent transformation into plastic are performed using living organisms: bacteria collected from all over Spain and then carefully selected, modified and optimised for the production of polyhydroxybutyrate (PHB) class plastics.

In conclusion, the CO2_2020 Project has proven that it is possible to generate impact and value-added products without compromising on sustainability and efficiency, which are in highly demanded in society. This project has also demonstrated that, thanks to the help of many partners in different sectors, the industrial base of the Valencian Community is capable of and willing to respond to the needs of society and implement a fully circular economy in the plastics industry.