BLACK AND WHITE | MATERIALS
Looking for answers in black and white
Pigment suppliers are addressing recyclability and carbon footprint issues, allowing masterbatch companies to widen their portfolios. Jennifer Markarian reports
Many thermoplastic applications rely on black colorants. Properties such as opacity, tint strength, hue, and dispersability are important. Another property increasingly being considered is the ability to be sorted in material recycling facilities using near infrared (NIR) detection. Many carbon black-based pigments are not able to be detected in NIR sortation, but a variety of other types of blacks, including complex inorganic coloured pigments (CICPs), manganese ferrites and some new bio-based blacks, can be detected by NIR. Bioregion Technology (BRT), located in Oregon in the US, has launched TruBlack TPA Infrared (IR), a bio-based NIR-reflective black pigment that is capable of being sorted using NIR sorting equip- ment. The bio-derived black additive is created from lignocellulosic biomass from agricultural waste. BRT partnered with Nagase to sell and distribute the additive globally. “Through a novel carbonisation process, we’re able to turn this abundantly produced and tightly controlled biomass input into a high quality bio-derived carbon,” said Brendon Bohnert, Senior Manager for Emerging Technologies at Nagase. A patent-pending technology controls the surface morphology. “TruBlack has gone through the USDA’s BioPre-
ferred certification process and has 100% biobased carbon content. In addition, the biomass input is OMRI certified organic,” said Bohnert. The com-
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pany is working on US food contact substance notification, which would allow it to expand into food-contact applications. BRT’s aim was to develop a cost-effective
IR-reflective black masterbatch that would colour similarly to carbon black and provide good dispers- ibility with no impact on final part functionality, said Bohnert. He said the masterbatch is approximately 50% pigment loaded and will be used at 1.5 to 2 wt% for typical applications. “TruBlack also has advantages versus other NIR pigments as its colour is very close to what industry partners expect when using traditional carbon black,” said Bohnert. He said that the powder form of TruBlack is cleaner and easier to handle than carbon black. In addition, it has low to no magnetic properties. BRT worked with packaging supplier PakTech to optimise a masterbatch for the company’s black packaging handles. The parts were successfully sorted on four different sorting technologies in Australia and received the Australian Packaging Convenant Organisation (APCO) certificate for sortability. BRT has built a pilot plant that is capable of
producing 1.2m lbs/year of bio-derived carbon, which will be available for both pigment and industrial uses. The company aims to scale up its process and expand into conductive applications. UPM Biochemicals (part of Finland-headquar- tered forestry company UPM) is constructing a
November 2024 | COMPOUNDING WORLD 35
Main image: Carbon black is the tried and trusted pigment for black plastics, but alternative sources are being developed
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