Full day Workshop with Dr. Narayan

October 11, 2010- Full day workshop (Additional fee of $799)

Using Bio (renewable) Content and Biodegradability to Design and Engineer Green Products - Reducing Carbon Footprint and End-of-life Strategies

Dr. Ramani Narayan
University Distinguished Professor,
Michigan State University, Department of Chemical Engineering & Materials Science

WORKSHOP OBJECTIVES:
Biobased and biodegradable plastics and products are finding increasing attention as materials of choice for industrial and consumer applications. This short course teaches the principles and concepts of this new and emerging technology, its rationale and drivers, and the value proposition it offers to businesses. Businesses researching polymer materials or environmental issues and policies would greatly benefit from the course as it will help in learning and understanding the fundamental principles, and value proposition of biobased and biodegradable plastics and products for carbon management and environmental responsibility and compliance. More specifically the participants will learn carbon footprint basics, evaluate and report material carbon footprinting using biocarbon content analysis. They will learn to use LCA (Life cycle Assessment) tools to calculate process carbon and total environmental footprint of materials, specifically focusing on bioplastics. The participants will explore end of life strategies with special focus on biodegradability and the hypes and misleading claims in this space. Participants will study the technology road map for bioplastics and understand the various classes and technology platforms forming the bioplastics materials space.

WORKSHOP OUTLINE
 What feedstock (biomass or petro/fossil) to use in designing and engineering your (carbon based) plastics/products?
 Origins of the "carbon" in your product/material
 Value proposition for "biobased materials"; "biodegradable materials" ; Terminology/definitions and relationship - The "biological carbon cycle"
 Calculating and communicating bio carbon content value proposition
 Carbon Footprint Basics: Introducing concepts of material carbon & process carbon footprint (LCA - life cycle assessment)
 Calculate bio (carbon) content and use it to report carbon footprint (CO2) reductions - material carbon footprint reductions
 End-of-life strategy for BioPlastics -- What happens to product after use when it enters the waste stream
 Design for biodegradability (in what disposal environment?)
 Compostability, anaerobic digestion
 Recycling, energy recovery (Collection, Buy back, mail back programs)
 Misleading and Deceptive biodegradability claims - Beware!
 Standards for measuring biodegradability
 Technology Road Map
 Understand and evaluate all the biofeedstocks available for manufacture and the related biological and chemical technology platforms for manufacture.
 Fundamental understanding of the technology platforms (both chemical and biological) for manufacturing bio monomers and bioresins using carbohydrates, vegetable oil and other biosubstrates.

WORKSHOP SCHEDULE

8:30 - Registration
9:00 - Start of workshop
10:30 - 20 minute break
10:50 - Continuation of the workshop
12:00 - Lunch break
1:30 - Start of the second part of the workshop
3:00 - afternoon 20 min break
3:20 - Continuation of the workshop
5:00 - end of workshop