Sustainable Plastics - January/February 2023 - 9

what's new
Fishing lure made
with newly developed
PLA resin
Recycling at
Fortum
Materials
Teijin develops highly
biodegradable PLA
Teijin Frontier Co. Ltd., Teijin Group's fibres
and products converting company, announced
that it has developed a polylactic
acid (PLA) resin that biodegrades faster in
oceans, rivers and soil compared to conventional
PLA grades.
The company has achieved this by adding
a new biodegradation accelerator to
the polymer, which improves the biodegradation
rate without impairing strength,
mouldability or other material properties.
The higher biodegradation rate also means
that less microplastic is produced. The new
PLA resin is expected to help reduce microplastics
as well as to reduce CO2 emissions
during product life cycles, since it is made
from plant-derived raw materials.
Teijin Frontier will begin producing
and selling pellets, injection- and extrusion-moulded
products, textiles and nonwoven
fabrics made with its new PLA resin
in fiscal 2023 (ending March 2024) and is
targeting sales of several hundred million
JPY by fiscal 2026.
Toy-grade recyclate from
Fortum Circo is EN-71
compliant
European power company Fortum, headquartered
in Finland, has announced that its
Fortum Circo recycled plastic material has
Bio-based automotive
components
been approved for toy applications in the EU.
Fortum Circo is produced from post-consumer
plastic waste. This waste is separately
collected and delivered to the company's
plastic recycling plant, where it goes
through a number of steps, including NIR
sorting and separating, prior to being processed
and compounded, also at the plant.
As the entire process is carried out in-house,
Fortum says it can guarantee a consistent
quality of recycled raw material, 'from batch
to batch and from month to month'.
Having successfully demonstrated compliance
with the EU Toy Safety Standard EN
71-3, Fortum's Fortum Circo PP, HDPE and
LDPE grades will now be able to be used
in an even wider range of products. The EN
71-3 Toy Safety Standard is designed to assess
the potential release and migration of
chemicals if a toy or components of a toy
were to be swallowed by a child. The European
Committee for Standardisation sets
the standards for toy safety.
Bio-based compounds gain a
foothold in the auto industry
While plastics technology has generally
fared very well in the automotive business,
it has had to fight hard for every piece of
chrome and steel it has replaced. Even today,
most automotive engineers are primarily
schooled firstly in metallurgy and only
then in other materials.
For plant-based plastics like PLA, the
challenge has been even greater, and acceptance
has been slow in coming.
A collaborative project from plastics
specialist Röchling with BASF and Europe's
leading polymer compounder,
Benvic, proposes to show that bio-based
materials can deliver performance and environmental
benefits.
The environmental advantages, in terms
of both the carbon footprint and emission
rates, tended in the past not to be able to
outweigh the disadvantages in respect of
thermomechanical performance and resistance
to climate conditions.
Benvic has developed Plantura formulation
technology that changes the game. For
some time now, the company's Plantura biobased
polymer compounds have been successfully
going up against more traditional
materials such as polyamides or PMMA/
ASA formulations, the company said.
Benvic's compounds, with their increased
thermal resistance, hydrolysis, fatigue resistance
and resistance at impact, have been
found to be suitable to replace conventional
polymers in engineered parts. Customised
additives provided by BASF impart the required
UV resistance properties required
for parts continuously exposed to solar rays.
As a result, filter boxes, active grille shutters,
grilles, air intake ducts and engine
beauty covers made of bio-based Plantura
PLA compounds are being readied for introduction
on the market. Already the three
companies had the first results of the collaboration
on display at the K fair in October.
Röchling is currently preparing products
from filter boxes and active grille shutters to
continued on page 10
January/February 2023
9
Sustainable Plastics - January/February 2023

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