Sustainable Plastics - April 2020 - 19

Inside at: AVANTIUM

Biobased and recyclable

Interestingly, the topic of recycling is not one commonly
discussed in connection with
biobased plastics. For PEF,
however, it will be the end-oflife option of choice from the
very beginning.
"We have one benefit here,"
said van Aken. "When we
bring this to the market we
have already thought about
recycling, while if you look
at PET or any other polymer
launched 30 years ago, it was
decades before the question
came up of how to recycle it.
So in that sense, we have the
benefit of doing all this testing
before we launch the product
instead of having to come up
with recycling solutions while
the product is already on the
market."
Over the years, therefore,
Avantium has tested PEF bottles and PEF films in different
kinds of sorting facilities to
make sure that the sorting
equipment (through infrared
detection) of these facilities
can recognise PEF and differentiate PEF from, for example
PET or other polymers. Avantium has also used recycled
PEF bottles to make new bottles, and even films and fibres.
'It is all very similar to the
mechanical recycling technologies being used for PET
- they can also be applied to
PEF. In that sense, recyclers
like the product," van Aken
commented.
Obviously, introducing 5
kilotonnnes into the market
is not a sufficient volume for
recyclers to establish a PEF
to PEF stream. However, according to Avantium, up to
5% PEF can be mixed into the
PET stream without problem.
"In fact,", says van Aken: "It
doesn't affect the colour or the
haze, so when recyclers process PEF, it will basically just
be co-mingled with the PET
recycle stream and as such
recycled. Now this is not a
solution for the long term; it is
very clearly a solution only for
the short term or intermediate
term". Once PEF gets bigger
in volume, dedicated PEF recycling becomes an attractive business opportunity. It
is technically proven that PEF
can be separated from PET".

From commercial to
industrial scale
Avantium's first FDCA flagship plant at Delfzijl will have
a nameplate capacity of 5 kilotonnes per year, referred to by
the company as 'commercial
scale'. Does the company have
plans to expand to industrial
scale at this same location? Not
at present, according to van
Aken.
The main goal of this flagship
plant, he said, is to get PEF to
market. Practically speaking,
this is the one sure way to gain
a better understanding of how
consumers will respond to the
new material in different parts
of the world; how brand owners
will respond and how quickly
they will adapt to using PEF to
make bottles or to use PEF films
in food packaging and in their
electronic products.
The nature of the new material and its application possibilities make it reasonable to assume that at some point in the
future, PEF will be produced
at similar scale to PET, which
means that the production of
FDCA will have to be scaled up
very significantly - globally.
At this point, however, Delfzijl
is the perfect choice offering
multiple advantages, van Aken
observed: "It's a very significant
chemical site; of course there
is no oil refinery, so most of the
products made there are made
on the basis of salt, but it has
a great harbour and therefore a
great sea connection. With agricultural feedstocks, a seaport
is an advantage. The site also
provides the utilities and infrastructure that a chemical company needs, such as steam, different industrial gases, etcetera,
which also make it attractive."
In addition, to compensate
for the fact that the Netherlands
is actually shutting down its
natural gas extraction activities
in the area, the Dutch government has put significant financial support packages in place
to enable the local governments
to attract new economic activities. In fact, Avantium already
has other assets operating in
Delfzijl. Plus that, not unimportantly, in the near future quite a
number of people will have to
be retrained for jobs in industries other than natural gas, so

Bottles made
from PEF
that finding personnel could
pose few problems.
"I think this is how it all
comes together," van Aken said.
"Our initial experience in Delfzijl
- we have been operating there
for two years - is that we have
been able to attract really, really experienced and capable
people from the gas and conventional chemical industry; in
the region significant chemical
plants are operational so in that
sense, so far so good and we
look forward to building on the
success we've had so far."

Ahead of the game
The timing is excellent. With
consumers increasingly demanding
renewably-sourced
products or products that can
be recycled in a sustainable
manner, PEF bottles fit the bill
in every way. Moreover, said
van Aken, young consumers in
particular are so critical, so vocal about this that there is immense pressure on brand owners to make transitions.
Over time, however, the focus has shifted. When Avantium
started its PEF project, it was
all about renewable feedstocks,
while today, this has been overtaken by a tremendous amount
of attention for plastic waste
and demand for circular solutions.
"Plastics waste is putting
significant pressure on our environment and our natural systems. It's good we are forced to
think about how we can make

sure how our materials can be
reused or recycled if we cannot reuse them," said van Aken.
"This makes us very well positioned and, in that sense, l really
am looking forward to the new
legislation now being implemented across the globe: it all
plays in favour of more sustainable solutions such as ours."
Looking ahead to the inevitable moment that other FDCA
producers enter the market,
Avantium is not worried. The
company has made very significant investments - well
over €100m so far - to keep its
technological lead. Moreover,
as van Aken is well aware,
customers do not want to be
dependent on a single supplier and is under no illusion that
the company can keep this
space to itself.
"It is going to be healthy
when other companies reach
the same point. But of course I
hope that we are going to have
economic and quality benefits
over them so that we can capture the value we have created,"
he added.
Ultimately, however, what
drives him, and most of the other people working at the company is the opportunity to make
an impact.
As he concluded: "We all
feel very driven by this desire
to make an impact on this transition in the chemical industry,
and that's what's keeping us
going - and we are now getting
to the point where it is becoming really interesting."
April 2020

Sustainable Plastics - April 2020

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Sustainable Plastics - April 2020