NEWS PlasticsEurope’s Baunemann dies
Dr Rüdiger Baunemann, General Manager of PlasticsEurope Germany, died “suddenly and unexpectedly” at the age of 58 in his home town of Leun in Germany on 17 April. Baunemann joined PlasticsEurope Germany’s predecessor, VKI, in 1989 and held the post of Managing Director and Head of the Plastics and Consumers Division from 2002 to 2010. He had been General Manager of PlasticsEurope Germany, as well as Regional Director for Central Europe and part of the PlasticsEurope
Vestolit sale on hold
Orbia, formerly Mexichem, has put plans to sell its Vestolit PVC business (Polymer Solutions Business Group) on hold due to market disruptions caused by the coronavirus pandemic. The company said the
Vestolit business was fundamentally strong with a unique global footprint and strong cash genera- tion. It said it was prepared to wait for the right environment to maximise shareholder value. �
www.orbia.com
leadership team in Brussels, since 2011. “Under the leadership of Dr Baunemann, PlasticsEurope Germany has become a strong advocacy group for the plastics industry, which enjoys a high reputation with politicians and the public,” said Dr Michael Zobel, Chairman of the association. Dr Ingo Sartorius, currently Head of the
People and Environment section at Plastic- sEurope Germany, has taken over manage- ment on a provisional basis. �
www.plasticseurope.org
PlasticsEurope Germany’s Dr Rüdiger Baunemann
BASF licenses Red Avenue to produce PBAT in China
BASF has granted China- based Red Avenue New Materials Group a licence to produce compostable aliphatic-aromatic co-poly- ester (PBAT) to BASF quality standards.
Under the agreement,
Red Avenue will build a 60,000 tonnes/yr plant in Shanghai that will use BASF’s process technology. BASF will have access to raw material from the plant, which it will sell under its Ecoflex brand. Production is due to start in 2022. BASF currently produces Ecoflex at its plant at
Ludwigshafen in Germany. The certified-compostable polymer can be produced from bio-based sources but is currently made from fossil-based feedstock. Together with PLA and thermoplastic starch, Ecoflex forms the base for BASF’s Ecovio blends. The global market for
certified compostable and bio-based plastics is expected to grow by around 15%/year, according to BASF, driven largely by new laws enforcing the use of compostable materials in packaging, agricultural
mulch films and bag applications in certain countries. n In an unrelated move, BASF began piling work for the first plants in its ‘smart verbund’ project at Zhanji- ang, Guangdong province, China, at the end of May. These will produce thermo- plastic polyurethanes for various industries in southern China and throughout Asia. First production is expected to be on the market by the end of 2022. �
www.ecoflex.basf.com �
www.basf.com
Suzhou Hechang lifts its LFT capacity
Chinese compounder Suzhou Hechang Polymeric Materials has upgraded the 64-strand LFT production line at its plant at Suzhou in Jiangsu province, lifting output by more than 40%. The line was originally supplied by Germany’s ProTec Polymer Processing in
2017. It has now been upgraded by ProTec to run at a line speed of 50 m/min, delivering outputs of up to 1.5 tonnes/hr depending on the specific recipe. Protec has installed around 10 LFT lines in Asia, including four in China. Last
year, Suzhou Sunway Polymer Co added a 64-strand Protec line to the 32-strand line from the German company it had been running since 2017. �
www.sp-protec.com
8 COMPOUNDING WORLD | June 2020
www.compoundingworld.com
IMAGE: PROTEC POLYMER PROCESSING
IMAGE: PLASTICSEUROPE
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