Cargill Dow LLC. Patrick R. Gruber

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1 Cargill Dow LLC Patrick R. Gruber Cargill Dow, LLC Whitewater Drive Minnetonka, MN Patrick R. Gruber is vice president and chief technology officer at Cargill Dow LLC. Year founded: 1997 Ownership: Joint venture of Cargill and Dow Chemical Headquarters: Minnesota, USA Product category: Polymers Employees: 200 to 300 Production capacity: More than 300 million pounds of NatureWorks PLA per year 2004 by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Yale University Volume 7, Number 3 4 Cargill Dow LLC, based in Minnetonka, Minnesota, offers a family of polymers derived entirely from annually renewable resources with the cost and performance necessary to compete with traditional fibers and packaging materials. Founded in 1997, the company has achieved this by using a simple process of fermentation, distillation, and polymerization to derive a proprietary polylactide polymer, NatureWorks 1 PLA, 2 from field corn. Cargill Dow harvests the carbon stored in simple plant sugars when corn plants photosynthesize. Initially, the corn grain is milled, separating starch from the grain. Unrefined dextrose, in turn, is processed from the starch and is turned into lactic acid using a fermentation process similar to that used by beer producers. Through a condensation process, the cyclic intermediate dimer lactide is formed and then purified through vacuum distillation. Finally, ring-opening polymerization of the lactide is accomplished with a solvent-free melt process, delivering PLA resin. 3 In April 2002, Cargill Dow LLC opened the world s first globalscale manufacturing facility capable of making commercial-grade plastic resins from an annually renewable resource. The facility, which represents nearly $750 million in investments, is capable of producing more than 300 million pounds (about 136 million kilograms) of NatureWorks PLA per year and using up to 40,000 bushels (about 1.4 million liters) of corn per day. The resin is being shipped around the globe for use in producing food and nonfood packaging, disposable cups and utensils, comforters, pillows, carpet tiles, and apparel. Journal of Industrial Ecology 209

2 The Formation of Cargill Dow LLC The development of NatureWorks PLA began as a small-scale project for a team of Cargill scientists asked to explore new uses for corn. Cargill was looking for ways to expand the use of the billions of bushels of corn and related byproducts flowing through its mills. After evaluating opportunities together with professionals from the chemical industry and listening to the advice that they gave, the team determined that desirable, and more sustainable, products would need to (1) work in commercial applications, (2) be economical, (3) be made from renewable resources, and (4) have a much smaller environmental footprint than conventional products. Once the team determined the criteria, they then looked at potential products. As a result of market and technology investigations, the Cargill team came to believe that it is possible to meet all of the criteria by combining the best of large-scale industrial biotechnology with chemical processing. The Cargill team made a list of potential products. PLA was on that list. PLA is not new Wallace Corothers, the scientist who invented nylon, first discovered it in the 1920s but it never had been successfully commercialized on a large scale. PLA cost was orders of magnitude too high, and its technical performance was not acceptable for large-scale plastics and fibers applications and products. It made the Cargill team s list because it fit the criteria and the Cargill scientists recognized that it was possible to solve both the cost and performance issues. PLA is produced from lactic acid, a naturally occurring product found in everything from yogurt to overexerted muscles. PLA s monomer, lactic acid, exists in two forms, left-handed and right-handed. To form a polymer, monomers are linked together like pearls on a necklace. By controlling the amount of rightand left-handed monomers as well as the chain length, the properties of PLA can be controlled to meet commercial needs in a wide variety of applications. Prior attempts by industry at producing PLA resulted in a resin that cost $100 per pound, nearly 100 times more than what competing polymers command. The Cargill technology solved the expensive manufacturing issues by avoiding solvents, using simple unit operations, and designing the process to be highly efficient and very flexible. The Cargill team recognized that they needed to have a product that would deliver the performance and price necessary to compete with traditional resins. Anything less would keep PLA in the category populated with many other environmentally friendly plastics of the time: expensive, poor-performing niche products that never seriously competed with products produced from petrochemicals. Cargill worked with various polymer partners in the period of but proceeded for the most part on their own. Attention to PLA s market viability was critical in ensuring the team got the organic chemistry and plant engineering right. Too often, in the hopes of creating sustainable processes, businesses, governments, and environmentalists focus too intensely on the process and not the product. So, Cargill created prototypes to do concept tests in the marketplace. What they found was a laundry list of requirements plastics customers were looking for in a new resin, all of which they believed they could deliver with PLA. In 1994, the company built an 8 million pound per year PLA facility in Savage, Minnesota, to produce lactide on a larger scale. This plant was then used to perfect the manufacturing technology and allow further development of a commercial market for PLA. In early 1995, Cargill realized it needed a partner with a presence in the polymer market, as it was generally thought that Cargill alone did not have the necessary credibility in the plastics industry. Cargill subsequently assembled a list of partner attributes, and the Dow Chemical Company emerged as the best candidate. After about 18 months of discussions, the Dow Chemical Company agreed to pursue the concept of NatureWorks PLA and, in 1997, signed a 50:50 joint venture agreement creating Cargill Dow LLC. In January 2000, the parents were convinced of its commercial viability and agreed to invest $300 million to fund the building of the Cargill Dow Blair facility. Several key government and industry groups also helped Cargill Dow develop and commercialize NatureWorks PLA. The U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology provided critical research support and scientific study to help make PLA commercially viable. The U.S. 210 Journal of Industrial Ecology

3 Grains Council helped open up international markets for PLA, actively working with Cargill Dow to raise the awareness of PLA in key geographic markets, particularly in Japan. And the U.S. Department of Energy funded research to improve the performance of polylactic acid polymers in a joint project between Cargill Dow, the Colorado School of Mines, and the U.S. National Renewable Energy Laboratory. Performance without Sacrifice Although environmentally sound products are highly desired by consumers, performance is the ante for even being considered. What makes NatureWorks PLA an attractive option for converters, mills, manufacturers, brand owners, retailers, and consumers is that it offers performance in the fiber and packaging markets that is on par with existing materials. In the packaging sector, the resin can be used in film, rigid, and bottle applications. Some of the inherent physical properties that the resin provides include high gloss, superior clarity, very good optics, strong deadfold, and the abilities to be heat sealed, retain flavors, provide an odor barrier, and be processed on existing equipment. Nature- Works PLA is suited for a range of applications, including thermoform trays, bread bags, twist wrap, venue cups, floral wrap, envelope windows, and blister packs. Ingeo fiber is a new brand concept for fibers made from PLA. The new fiber can be used in a range of fiberfill, knitted, and woven fabrics and nonwoven applications. These include bedding, clothing, wipes, carpet tiles, and upholstery, as well as interior and outdoor furnishings. Ingeo fibers combine many of the desired physical characteristics of natural fibers, such as wool, cotton, and silk, with those of conventional, petroleum-based synthetics. Benefits include superior hand and drape, better wicking, comfort, moisture management, ultraviolet (UV) resistance, and low odor retention. In addition to the performance attributes of the resin, NatureWorks PLA offers significant environmental benefits. The process used to create NatureWorks PLA can use 20% to 50% fewer fossil resources than is required by conventional plastic resins. And, because carbon dioxide is removed from the atmosphere in growing corn, the overall carbon dioxide emissions can be 15% to 60% lower than comparable plastics, such as polystyrene (Slater et al. 2003). The solvent-free process for making PLA also ensures that there are no hormone disrupters, an emerging issue in some traditional thermoplastics and at the center of health concerns related to plastics. Differentiating the polymer from competitive materials, NatureWorks PLA fits all current disposal options, with the added benefit of being fully compostable in municipal and industrial facilities. NatureWorks PLA incinerates cleanly with lower energy yield than traditional polymers. PLA polymers also contain no aromatic groups or chlorine and burn much like paper, cellulose, and carbohydrates. Combustion of PLA produces few by-products and 0.01% ash (Vink et al. 2003). In areas where capacity is limited, this is an advantage in that the lower heat output permits a higher incinerator facility throughput. Municipal composting is a method of waste disposal that allows organic materials to be recycled into a product that can be used as a valuable soil amendment. Extensive testing at laboratory and pilot scales according to international standards, and in actual composting facilities, demonstrates PLA polymers are fully compostable according to International Organization for Standardization (ISO), European Committee for Standardization (CEN), American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM), and German Institute for Standardization (DIN) draft regulations. DIN- Certco Compost Certification has been awarded for PLA polymer use in Germany. PLA can also be recycled. Just as for all other materials, the practicality of this depends upon the economics of collection. Once large amounts PLA are available in the marketplace, it may be practical to develop the infrastructure to recycle PLA from postconsumer waste. Interestingly, PLA can also be recycled by converting it back to lactic acid, which of course could be used for PLA or other applications. The Business of Sustainability Remaining true to the original criteria for developing sustainable products, Cargill Dow wants to be a successful company that is sustainable. Therefore, the company has built a business Gruber, Cargill Dow LLC 211

4 model around managing its products from cradle to grave to ensure that a good idea is also good for business, the environment, and/or society. Cargill Dow investigates and accounts for all potential environmental impacts, so that it can understand and reduce them over time by working across the business system with suppliers, customers, and waste managers. Research shows that technological advancements in the production of PLA could allow up to an 80% to 100% reduction in net carbon dioxide emissions, and Cargill Dow is exploring alternative, non-petroleum-based forms of energy to further reduce reliance on fossil fuels. They also are looking to biomass feedstocks, such as stalks and straw, which are abundant, often cheaper than corn, and can provide farmers a secondary source of income. Cargill Dow also asks suppliers and customers to look at the life cycle of their processes and products and ask that they commit to decreasing their environmental footprint as a prerequisite to using NatureWorks PLA and Ingeo fibers. Successful commercialization of NatureWorks PLA shows all types of stakeholders that it is in fact possible to make products more sustainable without compromising price and performance. Cargill Dow expects and hopes that other companies will follow with similar products. The biorefining process Cargill Dow uses to produce lactic acid and PLA has the potential for applications beyond PLA resin, translating to the production of green chemicals, solvents, additives, catalysts, biofuels, and specialty chemicals. It is the basis for a biobased chemicals and plastics industry capable of delivering products society desires with a smaller environmental footprint. In fact, the biological system does chemistry humans could not do otherwise. Considerable work is needed, however, to translate understanding into significant industrial impact. Government, industry, and academia must work together to optimize each and every component needed to deliver the technology and the financial cases required for capitalizing biorefineries. Research shows the benefits are worth the effort. In addition to the environmental and related social benefits, the economics are meaningful, considering that the successful introduction of a biorefinery economy in the United States would have a dramatic impact on the economy of rural America. To this end, Cargill Dow has joined Genencor and other industry partners in coordinating a project to develop and validate processes for delivering the technology and to make the financial case required for capitalizing sustainable biorefineries for the production of chemicals, materials, and fuels from lignocellulosic biomass. By shifting away from petrochemicals to biobased raw materials, a new industry is enabled. The biobased industry will emerge not tied to the end of a petrochemical supply chain (or pipeline) but instead in the midst of agricultural regions. This means new jobs and new capital investment in rural economies. It means a shift away from an extractive society to one where the raw materials and products can be produced by more sustainable techniques with local raw materials and jobs. The Future Notes 1. NatureWorks, Ingeo, and the Ingeo logo are trademarks of Cargill Dow LLC. 2. Editor s note: Poly(lactide) or PLA means a polymer derived from the condensation of lactic acid or by the ring-opening polymerization of lactide. The terms lactide and lactate are used interchangeably. Polylactide or polylactate is a commercial, biodegradable polymer that is used for a variety of packaging, medical, and other materials applications. Lactic acid, lactide, and polylactide all occur as chiral molecules. Chiral molecules are molecules that are so asymmetric that they are nonsuperimposable on their mirror images. That is, they have handedness in the way gloves are left- or right-handed. Lactide occurs in three forms: the two chiral isomers of lactide, l-lactide and d-lactide, and an achiral form known as meso-lactide. The predominant stereoisomer in the lactide polymer product is l-lactide. Thus, the terms polylactide or PLA used in this article and poly-l-lactate or PLLA used in the article by Sakai and colleagues (2003), in this issue of the Journal of Industrial Ecology, all describe the same material. 3. Editor s note: For a description of another route to producing this biopolymer, see the article by 212 Journal of Industrial Ecology

5 Sakai and colleagues (2003) in this issue of the Journal of Industrial Ecology. References Sakai, K., M. Taniguchi, S. Miura, H. Ohara, T. Matsumoto, and Y. Shirai Making plastics from garbage: A novel process for poly-l-lactate production from municipal food waste. Journal of Industrial Ecology 7(3 4): Slater, S., D. Glassner, E. Vink, and T. Gerngross. (2003). Evaluating the environmental impact of biopolymers. In General Aspects and Special Applications. Biopolymers, Vol. 10, edited by A. Steinbuchel. Weinheim, Germany: Wiley. Vink, E. T. H., K. R. Rábago, D. A. Glassner, and P. R. Gruber (2003). Applications of life cycle assessment to NatureWorks polylactide (PLA) production. Polymer Degradation and Stability 80: docs/pla_article.pdf. Gruber, Cargill Dow LLC 213

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