Sustainable Plastics - May/June 2020 - 35

Bioplastics
the bioplastic seats for a line
of chairs. Recently, Plantura
has also supplied its durable
grade PLA to leading Italian
furniture company Kartell to
produce their signature pastel-coloured chests of drawers and chairs. The company
is also working with Plantura
on various new projects.
While the motivation may
partly be due to marketing purposes, Kartell is also interested
in developing a more sustainable product, said Bortolon.
"Because the performance of
the product is quite interesting
- it offers good UV resistance,
the colouring is fantastic and
the appearance is high-gloss,
like an ABS. The material is
over 84% bio-sourced - there
are some additives inside that
are not bio, but these are the
current technical constraints
we must deal with."
The situation in the automotive industry is a similar one.
The company launched in 2007
with Roechling Automotive as
a partner, aiming to develop
bio-based plastic applications
for vehicles. The result was an
under-the-bonnet application,
made from a patented Plantura
grade with a performance comparable with polyamide.
Since then, Plantura has
developed
numerous
under-the-bonnet
parts.
The
company guarantees to its
automotive customers that the
used plastic is recoverable via
mechanical recycling.
"We have a new project with
various OM's for different under-the-bonnet applications, like
filter boxes, active grill shutters,
so quite a lot of potential business. The challenge here is the
price. Compared with standard
products, it is higher, so we need
to have a specific strategy for
carmakers to adopt this material. It is not a technical issue. The
technical aspects have already
been resolved; so PLA can substitute PA and PP in different applications under the bonnet."

Coffee capsules - a
logical application?

Coffee capsules are an extremely interesting application
area for Plantura. The company
has developed a range of Nespresso-compatible and other

> Automotive parts
from Plantura PLA

capsules, all of which are industrially compostable. However,
there is also a huge demand
from consumers and brand
owners for home compostable
capsules. While making a home
compostable material is easy,
said Bortolon, meeting the requirements for coffee packaging with this material is not.
"However, I think we have
one of the best industrial compostable solutions available,
which is produced in Italy and
in the Netherlands by our Dutch
partner, ATI (Advanced Technology Innovations B.V.) ," he said.
This company has developed a technology to produce
the capsules in a different way,
through injection moulding.
Customers are supplied with
a turnkey system that includes
the filter and the closure with
the capsule.
"It is quite complicated, users
are looking for Nespresso compatible - or some other system
and don't realise how much
technology goes into this product," he pointed out.

Future developments

In packaging, Plantura is
working on the development
of a home compostable coffee
capsule, but there are a lot of
restrictions, said Bortolon. The
combination of required material properties - high-temperature resistant, water-resistant,
home compostable - is very difficult to realise, while good barrier properties are also needed.
"The coffee is stocked in the supermarket for 2-3 months, and
has to stay fresh."
The company is also devel-

oping a bio-based container for
cosmetics and has a new blow
moulding grade of PLA for this
application in the pipeline that
is currently being tested by our
cosmetics partners. "That will
become available this year,"
said Bortolon.
A further focus is compostable barrier film for food
packaging, i.e. for fresh meat,
vegetables. PLA generally has
poor gas barrier properties,
which has made it less suitable
for these applications.
"Together with our Italian
partner companies we have
created a transparent film
with a good oxygen barrier,"
said Bortolon. "It is still in a
developmental stage but will
be industrially available before
summer when it will be officially presented".
Mechanical recycling is another area the company is
studying. "Because of the shortage of material, we are always
interested in recycling products. And we have a few developments: we've demonstrated
that it is possible to improve the
performance of PLA, so this is
one of the key developments in
the future. We are very interested in looking at second life PLA
and industrial scraps of PLA.
That is a source we can handle
properly," he explained.
The company already recycles its post-industrial thermoforming scrap from coffee
capsules back into the production line and has partner
companies that collect, grind
and recycle material from other
sources, as well.
But, said Bortolon: "With

mechanical, and also chemical
recycling - which we don't believe offers opportunity for biobased plastics - you add a lot of
CO2 emissions, which means
you exceed the CO2 emissions
rates for virgin PLA. That's the
issue: there is no benefit on
CO2 emissions to be gained.
So we prefer organic recycling
wherever possible."

'Bioplastics is
a business'

While the market is small,
it is growing. Benvic brand's
current share of the market
varies from application to
application. "In the film packaging we are not a leader; in
the coffee capsule materials
we will be one of the leading
companies in Europe- but in
the furniture area, we are a
market leader: the volume is
small, but it will become big in
the future," said Bortolon.
What kind of companies become customers? Are they simply idealistic enthusiasts?
"The enthusiasts among our
customers are the one who
have a clear idea that they can
gain something from using
these materials," said Bortolon.
"Although there are companies that are so conscious
about the environment and
willing to spend two or three
times the cost of conventional
plastics just because they want
to save the planet, I also think
that these companies want to
spend money on bioplastics
- because they consider that
there is value to be gained from
doing it," he concluded.
May/June 2020

Sustainable Plastics - May/June 2020

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