ADDITIVES | FLAME RETARDANTS
Right: Clariant is using Neste’s renewable hydrocarbons in its Exolilt OP Terra flame retardants
better flammability properties but also better mechanical properties and processability.” This is said to eliminate the need for any separate solid stating stage to improve viscosity. Large volumes of old PET
bottles are current recycled into fibres, Jiang points out. “Automotive companies increasingly want to use recycled materials and they also want flame-retardant materials. At the moment, this does not give them many choices. We can make it possible for them to use fibres containing 100% r-PET (or more accurately 97% r-PET and 3% Nofia). This compares with a normal 50/50 virgin/recyclate blend.” Potential applications include headliners and other interior surfaces.
: N
only one third of all Exolit grades can be designat- ed as Terra grades. There are six grades in the new Exolit OP Terra
E
Renewable options Use of renewable feedstocks to address the sustainability issue is a practice well established in polymer production, but much less so in additives. That situation is changing, however. Clariant, for example, has teamed up with renewable hydrocar- bon producer Neste to offer a broad range of additives, including Exolit OP Terra flame retardants. These are based on mass balance certified ethylene and propylene from renewable feedstocks, such as waste animal fat and residue vegetable oils. Mass balance is a certification that may need
some explanation. Exolit OP Terra grades are produced in the same Exolit plant as regular Exolit OP grades. The crackers that produce the ethylene feedstock for all these grades are fed with crude, non-renewable oil and also with certified renewable feedstock. So all grades are derived from renew-
range of halogen-free flame retardants, all of which are based on aluminium diethyl-phosphinate (DEPAL). Clariant says they are the first to be based on renewable sources and to be proven not to interfere with the recycling process. They achieve UL 94 V-0 rating with stable flame retardancy even after multiple recycling processes. Application areas include electronic and electrical equipment and automotive components. Neste says that its proprietary NEXBTL technol- ogy allows it to make top-quality renewable diesel and other renewable products out of almost any waste fat or vegetable oil. The company claims to be the leading producer of renewable diesel in the world, with an annual production capacity of nearly three million tonnes.
Figure 2: Influence of multiple extrusions on elongation at break of glass fibre reinforced compounds with and without Exolit OP 1400 Source: Clariant
28 COMPOUNDING WORLD | December 2019
Recycling results Confirmation from the Fraunhofer LBF Institute over a multi-year research collaboration with Pinfa that Exolit OP continues to deliver the same high-level fire protection throughout many recycling and reuse cycles is a further boost to sustainability, Clariant says. It claims that post- industrial waste of glass fibre-reinforced polyamide containing Exolit OP provides manufacturers with a genuine alternative to new material. Additives can ensure that mechanical performance is also not affected, meaning that internally recycled waste or regrind material can be used to produce the same applications without the need to downcycle. “In addition, Exolit OP is not subject to ecode- sign application restrictions, for example the upcoming regulation for electronic displays based on the EU Ecodesign framework Directive (2009/125/EC)4 covering the recycling of plastics, which limits the use of halogenated flame retar- dants in enclosures and stands of electronic
www.compoundingworld.com
able and non-renewable feedstocks. Clariant designates some grades as being made from renewables and some from non-renewables according to the feedstock content, determined by mass balance techniques. So, mass balance is, essentially, a way of account- ing for all material entering and leaving a system, in this case to prove that no greenwashing is
going on. In other words, if one third of the feedstock comes from renewables,
I
M
E
A
T
G E
S
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76
