Good prospects for alternative leathers
Conventional leather is an attractively priced and sought-after consumer good. But leather production has important negative environmental and social consequences. Animals often live in harsh conditions; the sector uses much land and emits a lot of greenhouse gases. Preparing the skins causes a lot of chemical waste and endangers many workers. There is a growing
Vegan leather for sustainable fashion
Mankind has known leather for about seven thousand years, now. Leather is durable and versatile. And biodegradable. But it is produced as a by-product of the meat industry, in a process with much environmental pollution. So here’s the good news for vegans: leather-like materials (vegan leather) can be made from mushroom mycelium. With comparable properties
Performance and sustainability, drivers of demand for biobased chemicals
‘Biobased materials and chemicals are driven by performance,’ we wrote in 2016. They do not compete primarily on cost, but on the new functionalities they offer. Now, in the middle of record low oil prices, this principle receives support from an article in Chemical and Engineering News, CEN. They highlight three companies whose biobased chemicals
PHAs on the rise: for the first time, demand outstrips supply
PHAs are versatile, biodegradable and promising, we wrote a few years ago. There was just one problem: they were not competitive. So demand didn’t develop. And therefore, they remained not competitive. Gradually however, this vicious circle is being broken. PHAs are on the rise. Prospects are getting brighter. Versatile, promising, biodegradable ‘My advice would always
Mycelium as a construction material
Quietly, industry is perfecting the art of using mycelium as a construction material. Mycelium is the invisible part of mushrooms: their ‘roots’ that consist of minuscule threads called hyphae. There is just one disadvantage to mycelium as a construction material: it cannot carry much weight. But then, buildings require many parts that don’t have to
Circular economy: bio-plastics have an issue
Plastics in the Circular Economy are hot. The last EFIB-conference in October 2019 featured a track dedicated to ‘The future of plastics’. The last edition of Dutch magazine Agro&Chemie also featured an article on bio-plastics. And the recently announced European Green Deal includes a focus on the plastics industry because it is resource intensive. Based
Pure liquid silk
Evolved by Nature has developed pure liquid silk; properly speaking: silk in solution. This substance will enable yarns to be covered with silk. They will then have the properties that lend such an exquisite quality to silk: soft on the skin, sustainable and durable. The product has been embraced by Chanel, as reported by the
Biobased leather
This month, NNFCC’s newsletter highlighted the launch of two biobased leather products. Isn’t all leather biobased then? Yes, but here we mean leather of vegetable origin. The synthetic leather market amounted to $ 26 billion in 2018 and is still growing substantially. In this growing market, the share of biobased leather increases. The new products
