issue 03/2021

WWW.MATERBI.COM
05/05/17 11:39
Bottle News
Cove & RWDC go for PHA bottles
Cove, the Los Angeles-based (USA) material innovation
company that plans to introduce the first water bottle made
entirely of biodegradable material later this year, recently
announced it has entered into an exclusive partnership deal
with RWDC Industries. RWDC, based in Athens, Georgia, USA
and Singapore, will supply its proprietary PHA – a sustainably
sourced, naturally occurring biopolymer – to produce Cove’s
water bottles. Cove’s mission is to end the world’s reliance on
conventional plastic.
RWDC Industries uses plant-based oils, including postconsumer
or used cooking oils, to produce PHA, which
it has branded Solon. The biotech company combines
deep expertise in PHA properties and applications with the
engineering know-how to reach a cost-effective industrial
scale.
“We are thrilled to be working with the Cove team to make
PHA-based water bottles a reality. In a world where over
one million plastic bottles are purchased per minute, our
collaboration is an important step toward providing materials
that enable healthier options for people and the environment,”
said Daniel Carraway, co-founder and CEO of RWDC.
Under the partnership agreement, Cove will obtain 160,000
tonnes of PHA, supplied by RWDC, over the course of five
years. This will enable Cove to scale to hundreds of millions of
bottles in just a few years.
After an extensive, three-year research and development
effort, during which Cove worked with a number of PHA
producers (bM reported), the
company determined that RWDC
has the most advanced technology
and is the best-suited partner for
aggressive growth. Cove already
has large retail deals in place for
its first product launch, the water
bottle, later this year.
“We are incredibly excited to
Basics
Home composting | 44
partner with Daniel and his team,
Highlights
Bottles / Blow Moulding | 10
Biocomposites | 24
who have been at the centre of
PHA innovation over the past two
decades,” said Alex Totterman, Cove’s CEO and founder.
The partnership between Cove and RWDC is supported by an
exclusive agreement for the use of Solon for beverage bottles
and closure products. In the future, Cove plans to produce
products in other categories in its mission to accelerate the
adoption of sustainable materials like PHA. AT
Info
www.drinkcove.com | www.rwdc-industries.com
See a video-clip at:
https://youtu.be/
x-E3GxdE0kU
EcoComunicazione.it
r1_05.2017
bioplastics MAGAZINE Vol. 14 ISSN 1862-5258
Jul / Aug
04 | 2019
Cover Story
Cove PHA bottles
... is read in 92 countries
PEF bottles from citrus peel
New technology developed at VTT enables the use of
pectin-containing agricultural waste, such as citrus peel and
sugar beet pulp, as raw material for biobased PEF-plastics
for replacing fossil-based PET. The carbon footprint of plastic
bottles can be lowered by 50 % when replacing their raw
material of PET with PEF polymers, which also provides a
better shelf life for food.
“In the near future, you may buy orange juice in
bottles that are made out of orange peel. VTT’s novel
technology provides a circular approach to using food
waste streams for high-performance food packaging
material, and at the same time reducing greenhouse
gas emissions,” shares Professor of Practice Holger
Pöhler from VTT”.
PET and other polyesters are being widely used
in food packaging, plastic bottles and textiles. The
annual production of PET products is estimated at
30 million tonnes. Replacing fossil-based PET with
plant-based PEF (polyethylene furanoate) polymers
can lower the carbon footprint of the products by 50 %.
Moreover, the barrier properties of PEF plastics are better
than PETs, meaning that the food products have a longer
shelf life. PEF is a fully recyclable and renewable highperformance
plastic. Therefore, it opens up possibilities for
the industries to reduce waste and to have a positive impact
on the environment.
VTT’s technology has significant advantages for
making biobased PEF plastics. The technology uses
a stable intermediate for the production of FDCA
(2,5-furandicarboxylic acid), one of the monomers of PEF,
which enables a highly efficient process. In addition,
utilising pectin-containing waste streams opens up new
possibilities for the circular economy of plastics.
VTT’s unique scale-up infrastructure from laboratory
to pilot scale ensures that this new technology will be
brought to a technology readiness level that will allow
polymer manufacturers’ easy transition to full scale.
VTT has patented the technology, and the research
has been published in the scientific journal Green
Chemistry on 7 December 2020: “A unique pathway
to platform chemicals: aldaric acids as stable
intermediates for the synthesis of furandicarboxylic acid
esters”, https://doi.org/10.1039/D0GC02293D MT
www.vttresearch.com
18 bioplastics MAGAZINE [03/21] Vol. 16