PLA | sustainability
ing US & Canada, China and Europe. Our aim is to have global protection for our technology so that we can promote Floreon internationally.” According to the company, Floreon addresses the
demand for a PLA-based bioplastic suitable for manu- facturing degradable and compostable articles with improved mechanical, physical, chemical and thermal properties. Floreon blends are said to be suitable for injection moulding of parts such as packaging trays, cutlery and thin walled parts with improved processing efficiency compared to rival polymers. *additional reporting by Chris Smith
mould the filter casing, which contains an absorbent carbon filtration medium. “By means of an intelligent additive package and our special compounding technology we have been able to develop a PLA compound meeting all requirements,” says Carmen Michels, Managing Director of FKuR. Natureplast in France recently developed com- pounds based on PLA for products manufactured using injection moulding. “PLA products don’t generally exhibit a high temperature resistance. Recent develop- ments in PLA chemical nature can overcome this drawback, but these new grades are difficult to use in injection moulding, as the cooling time has to be high,” says Natureplast R&D manager Laurent Bélard. “We have worked to reduce significantly the cycle time, and the results have been particularly promising.” Bélard says Natureplast, through its R&D subsidiary
Biopolynov, now has PLA grades with improved mechanical and thermal properties compared to standard PLA, and improved productivity compared to existing heat-resistant PLA grades. He says pricing is “competitive.” The new grades, PLHT 201 and PLHT 202, are said to offer comparable if not superior thermal and mechanical properties to equivalent existing materials. “Trials made also allowed gain in cycle times from 30% up to more than 200%, depending on injected parts,” he says. Meanwhile, UK-based Floreon Transforming
Packaging has been granted patents in the UK, New Zealand and Australia covering a PLA blend technology, which is claimed to overcome the toughness and thermal resistance limitations of standard PLA. “With global demand for bioplastics set to rise by around 20% per year, we can see a huge export potential for Floreon,” says CEO Shaun Chatterton. “We are delighted with these first patent approvals, and are rapidly progressing patent applications across all major population centres - includ-
www.injectionworld.com July/August 2015 | INJECTION WORLD 51
Learn more Rich Weber, Asia Pacific commercial director at NatureWorks, will give a presentation on the latest developments in PLA at the Compounding World Asia 2015 conference, which takes place on 6-8 October in Singapore. Full details at:
http://bit.ly/CWAsia15. AMI’s Sustainable Polymers 2016 conference will take
place in Cologne, Germany on 1-2 March. Information on participating in this event as a speaker, delegate, sponsor or exhibitor can be found at:
http://bit.ly/SustPol.
Click on the links for more information: ❙
www.natureworksllc.com ❙
www.nypro.com ❙
www.polyalloy.com.tw ❙
www.corbion.com ❙
www.naturtruck.eu ❙
www.aimplas.es ❙
www.IWNiRZ.pl ❙
www.CTAG.com ❙
www.fkur.com ❙
www.natureplast.eu ❙
www.floreon.com
Left:
Compounding of natural fibre reinforced PLA at Aimplas in Spain
Below: The EU-funded Naturtruck
project aims to develop
bio-reinforced PLAs for
automotive trim components
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