Blow Moulding / Bottle
Blow Moulding / Bottle Applications New bio-MEG demonstration plant Avantium N.V., a leading technology development company and forerunner in renewable chemistry, has started construction of a new demonstration plant that will help advance the production of bio-based monoethylene glycol (MEG) made directly from renewable sugars. As MEG is a component for making everyday consumer goods, such as PET and PEF (cf. pp. 48) plastics and polyester textiles, the development of an environmentally friendly plant-based alternative has strong potential. Today, more than 99% of MEG is produced from fossil resources and the market demand for this product is expected to grow from 28 million to 50 million tons in the next 20 years. Biobased MEG, as for example used for bio-PET30 (e.g. Coca-Cola Plant Bottle) has been available for quite a while, mainly from India or Brazil. “Our novel single-step process can finally fulfil this demand in an environmentally sustainable manner that both consumers and leading brands have been seeking. I am proud of our team for making this important technological breakthrough. This enables renewable products growth for consumers that increasingly demand products brought to them in a responsible manner,” said Tom van Aken, Chief Executive Officer of Avantium. The new plant will use Avantium’s pioneering Mekong technology to convert renewable sugars into bio-based MEG. The plant – part of a previously disclosed €15-20 million investment in our most advanced technologies – will be operational in 2019, employing up to 20 people. Alongside this important investment decision by Avantium, the European Innovation Council has selected the Mekong technology as part of its €146 million investment in top-class innovators, entrepreneurs, small companies and scientists with bright ideas and the ambition to scale up internationally. “We are honored to be selected among the 79 innovative projects following face-to-face interviews with a jury of innovators, entrepreneurs and venture capitalists,” said Van Aken. The objectives of the demonstration plant are to scale up the novel bio-MEG technology, validate the technical and economic feasibility of the process, and to collect data to execute an environmental life-cycle analysis (LCA) quantifying the sustainability benefits of the Avantium technology. The demonstration plant site has not yet been announced, said the company, who added it was in the process of deciding between two locations. Construction will take place at an offsite location to control environmental conditions for complex chemistry and to protect the intellectual property of the technology. The plant will be delivered fully assembled to the chosen location and is expected to be completed in the second half of 2019. “This is a major step forward in the development of our Mekong technology,” said Zanna McFerson, Chief Business Development Officer of Avantium. “In addition to the environmental benefits, this demonstration plant will replicate commercial scale conditions of producing costeffective bio-MEG; a drop-in product identical to the fossilderived product. We are exploring partnership opportunities in bringing this technology to full-scale commercialization globally.” MT www.avantium.com Monoethylen glycol (MEG) 20 bioplastics MAGAZINE [04/18] Vol. 13
Blow Moulding / Bottle Applications VELOX offers newly developed transparent bio-plastic by SK Chemicals for hot-fill applications (Photo Syda Productions/Fotolia) Bio-copolyester for cans and bottles Newly developed transparent bio-plastic as an alternative to aluminium for aerosols and to heat-set PET for hot-fill applications VELOX and SK Chemicals recently presented ECOZEN HF ® , a bio-copolyester range especially suitable for the aerosol and food packaging industries VELOX GmbH (Hamburg, Germany), one of Europe’s leading solution providers of raw material specialities for the plastics, composites, additives and paint & coatings industries, and its long-term partner SK Chemicals Co. Ltd. (Seongnam, Gyeonggi-do province, South Korea) are presenting the next innovation for plastic packaging applications such as aerosol containers as well as cosmetic and hot fill bottles. Ecozen HF is a newly developed bio-copolyester range that is perfectly suitable for aluminum, glass and pet replacement wherever heat and pressure resistance combined with transparency is required. first customers have already started sampling the grades. “Ecozen HF has similar processing requirements to PET and can be used in the same injection-stretch blow moulding (ISBM) process. However, the new grades by SK Chemicals perform perfectly in areas where PET can sometimes fail, such as in high temperature and high-pressure applications”, explains François Minec, General Manager at Velox. “For example, PET is sometimes used to produce aerosol bottles. These bottles can often fail due to high residual stress and the low temperature resistance of PET, especially in the summer months when possible leakage is the result. Ecozen HF offers an ideal alternative here.” Besides remarkable resistance to pressure, stresscracking and high temperatures, Ecozen HF is characterised by excellent transparency and easy processing. As a glass replacement, e.g. for food packaging, it not only helps to reduce weight and transportation costs but can also be used to produce hot-fill containers without the need for an expensive PET heat-setting process or the need for crystallising the bottle or jar neck. Similarly, as an aluminum substitute in the cosmetics packaging industry, Ecozen HF combines high pressure-resistance with design flexibility and transparency. In addition, Ecozen HF is totally miscible with PET in the recycling stream. MT www.velox.com | www.skchemicals.com HIGH WE DRIVE THROUGHPUT. THE DIAMEETS CIRCULAR ECONOMY. QUALITY. Whether it is inhouse, postconsumer or bottle recycling: you can only close loops in a precise and profitable way if machines are perfectly tuned for the respective application. Count on the number 1 technology from EREMA when doing so: over 5000 of our machines and systems produce around 14 million tonnes of high-quality pellets like this every year – in a highly efficient and energy-saving way. That’s Careformance! CAREFORMANCE We care about your performance. 1710013ERE_ins_bioplastics magazine.indd 1 bioplastics MAGAZINE 18.10.17 [04/18] Vol. 14:313 21
