New life cycle assessment data for PEF bottles are now available that bear out PEF’s claims to sustainability, Avantium has announced.
An ISO-certified cradle-to grave LCA conducted by Germany’s nova Intitute assessed the potential environmental impact of monolayer PEF and multilayer PET/PEF bottles.
The LCA, carried out within the scope of the PEFerence project examined the entire life cycle of PEF-based bottles, from the extraction or cultivation of raw materials through production, use, and disposal of the product, taking into account all relevant environmental aspects of FDCA and PEF production. Ecoinvent data for bottle grade PET production available from most recent Eco-profiles in the European plastics industry were used to model the PET bottles.
The LCA is based on the engineering data from the first commercialisation phase of Avantium’s PEF production technology and has been peer reviewed by experts on LCA methodology and incumbent technologies to verify whether it met the requirements for methodology, data, interpretation, and reporting.
The outcome of the present study indicated that PEF bottles have a carbon footprint that is approximately 35% smaller than that of PET bottles. In addition, the biogenic nature of the emissions from renewable carbon that a PEF bottle would release at the end-of-life, do not add to global warming - this biogenic carbon simply re-enters the natural carbon cycle. By contrast, fossil-based plastics release carbon at the end-of-life that has been locked up in the ground for millions of years, increasing the total amount of carbon in the atmosphere. European LCA standards and methods do not allow carbon discounting based on temporary storage and therefore this is not included in this LCA.
On top of this, once PEF becomes commercially available, economic, technological, and environmental optimisations within the value chain, are expected to further reduce its environmental impact. This LCA study is the basis for assessing the sustainability benefits of Avantium’s current PEF applications and will enable the identification and quantification of further technology development, as well as opportunities for improvement in the value chain.
Such improvements may consist of the use of renewable energy, different feedstock sources, process optimisation and recycling of PEF. In the Netherlands, the current energy mix contains a low percentage of renewable energy, while the use of both renewable heat and electricity are predicted to become the norm in the near future.
Recent energy optimisation work for an FDCA plant at industrial scale has already shown that energy consumption can significantly be reduced, resulting in a further improved LCA. And finally, once PEF becomes established in the market, a closed-loop material recycling stream will become possible, which will enhance its recycling rates.
“We strongly believe that the development of PEF to full industrial scale from 2024 will lead to a further substantial reduction in the carbon footprint of PEF applications, also in other fields such as flexible packaging and apparel,” said Ed de Jong, vice president of Development at Avantium.
In other words, the PEF process is expected to become much more efficient, in both energy integration and achieved yields. Substantial further GHG emission and other environmental benefits will be achieved when these factors have been realised. Avantium will conduct another LCA study once these improvements have been realised.