The Go Circular team had a chance to ask Leon De Bruyn, President & CEO, of Lummus Technology about his opinion on the prospects of transitioning existing linear assets to circular feedstocks after his speech at the Go Circular in Cologne (April 2024).

Source: Go Circular

How do you see the potential for converting existing linear assets to circular processes in the production of renewable polymers?

• Traditional polymer production is linear, but will soon include circular feedstocks.
• New facilities and existing infrastructure will help introduce circularity faster.
• Single-use plastics face increasing pressure; bio-derived polymers can make them biodegradable.
• Multiple strategies are needed to solve the plastic waste issue.
• Ethanol from plant waste can be converted to ethylene, enabling green polymer production from biogenic feedstocks.

Currently, polymers are produced using traditional, linear processes. I believe we will soon see these processes adapt to incorporate circular feedstocks along with linear ones. This will likely happen alongside the construction of new facilities designed for fully circular production. By utilizing existing infrastructure, we can introduce circularity more quickly. Therefore, the answer is not a simple choice between traditional or circular methods, but a combination of both.

The pressure on single-use plastics is increasing and for good reasons. The actual useful consumption of plastics is less than the total consumption. If we can replace traditional plastic materials like polyethelene and polypropylene with bio-derived polymers, single-use plastics will become biodegradable, reducing their environmental impact.

Leon De Bruyn presenting at Go Circular in Cologne

Polymers like polyhydroxyalkanoate, especially for single-use plastics, could offer significant environmental benefits. However, no single solution will completely solve the issue. We need multiple strategies working together to address this major problem.

Ethanol, a unique molecule produced from plant waste, can be efficiently converted to ethylene - a process we've been using for several years. Once ethylene is produced, it can be used to make any petrochemical or fuel molecule through dimerization or polymerization. This means green polymers can be produced from biogenic feedstock instead of fossil fuel-derived feedstocks.