Scale-up and Sustainability Evaluation of Biopolymer Production from Citrus Waste Offering Carbon Capture and Utilisation Pathway

ChemistryOpen. 2019 May 21;8(6):659. doi: 10.1002/open.201900161. eCollection 2019 Jun.

Abstract

Invited for this month's cover picture is the group of Dr Miao Guo from Department of Chemical Engineering at the Imperial College London (UK). The cover picture shows modelling research on the co-polymerisation of waste-sourced limonene oxide with CO2 to produce poly(limonene carbonate), which offers a sustainable pathway to achieve carbon capture and utilisation. A computational approach to process design was integrated with sustainability evaluation to model this synthetic pathway and identify the environmental-damaging and performance-limiting steps for further improvement. Our research highlights the potential of closed-loop manufacturing systems with waste recovery, which is instrumental in building a sustainable circular economy. Read the full text of their Full Paper at 10.1002/open.201900015.