TY - JOUR
T1 - Exploring Comparative Energy and Environmental Benefits of Virgin, Recycled, and Bio-Derived PET Bottles
AU - Benavides, Pahola Thathiana
AU - Dunn, Jennifer Marie
AU - Han, Jeongwoo
AU - Biddy, Mary
AU - Markham, Jennifer
N1 - Funding Information:
This work was supported by the Bioenergy Technologies Office of the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy of the United States. Department of Energy (Contract DE-AC02-06CH11357). In addition, this work was authored in part by Alliance for Sustainable Energy, LLC, the manager and operator of the National Renewable Energy Laboratory for the United States. Department of Energy (Contract DE-AC36-08GO28308). We thank Maggie Mann, Gregg Beckham, and Chris Johnson at National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) for helpful discussions and Brandon Knott at NREL for initially developing the process model. Part of this work was developed under the Clean Energy Manufacturing Analysis Center (http://www.manufacturingcleanenergy.org/).
Publisher Copyright:
Copyright © 2018 American Chemical Society.
PY - 2018/8/6
Y1 - 2018/8/6
N2 - Polyethylene terephthalate (PET) is a common plastic resin used to produce packaging, notably plastic bottles. Most PET bottles are produced from fossil fuel-derived feedstocks. Bio-derived and recycling-based pathways to PET bottles, however, could offer lower greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions than the conventional route. In this paper, we use life-cycle analysis to evaluate the GHG emissions, fossil fuel consumption, and water consumption of producing one PET bottle from virgin fossil resources, recycled plastic, and biomass, considering each supply chain stage. We considered two routes to produce bottles from biomass: one in which all PET precursors (ethylene glycol and teraphthalic acid) are bio-derived and one in which only ethylene glycol is bio-derived. Bio-derived and recycled PET bottles offer both GHG emissions and fossil fuel consumption reductions ranging from 12% to 82% and 13% to 56%, respectively, on a cradle-to-grave basis compared to fossil fuel-derived PET bottles assuming PET bottles are landfilled. However, water consumption is lower in the conventional pathway to PET bottles. Water demand is high during feedstock production and conversion in the case of biomass-derived PET and during recycling in the case of bottles made from recycled PET.
AB - Polyethylene terephthalate (PET) is a common plastic resin used to produce packaging, notably plastic bottles. Most PET bottles are produced from fossil fuel-derived feedstocks. Bio-derived and recycling-based pathways to PET bottles, however, could offer lower greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions than the conventional route. In this paper, we use life-cycle analysis to evaluate the GHG emissions, fossil fuel consumption, and water consumption of producing one PET bottle from virgin fossil resources, recycled plastic, and biomass, considering each supply chain stage. We considered two routes to produce bottles from biomass: one in which all PET precursors (ethylene glycol and teraphthalic acid) are bio-derived and one in which only ethylene glycol is bio-derived. Bio-derived and recycled PET bottles offer both GHG emissions and fossil fuel consumption reductions ranging from 12% to 82% and 13% to 56%, respectively, on a cradle-to-grave basis compared to fossil fuel-derived PET bottles assuming PET bottles are landfilled. However, water consumption is lower in the conventional pathway to PET bottles. Water demand is high during feedstock production and conversion in the case of biomass-derived PET and during recycling in the case of bottles made from recycled PET.
KW - Bio-derived PET bottle
KW - Life-cycle analysis
KW - Recycled-based PET bottle
KW - Water consumption
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U2 - 10.1021/acssuschemeng.8b00750
DO - 10.1021/acssuschemeng.8b00750
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85051175504
SN - 2168-0485
VL - 6
SP - 9725
EP - 9733
JO - ACS Sustainable Chemistry and Engineering
JF - ACS Sustainable Chemistry and Engineering
IS - 8
ER -
