According to the report, there is growing consumer demand and regulatory push for bio-based chemicals, materials, polymers, plastics, paints, coatings, and fuels with high performance, good recyclability, and biodegradable properties to underpin a transition towards more sustainable manufacturing and products.
Moving to more environmentally benign monomers is essential for the continuation of a highly beneficial relationship with polymers. This shift creates an opportunity to simultaneously access new property profiles. New polyols synthesized using a high-purity isosorbide illustrate what is possible.
A line of powder coatings from Sherwin-Williams are now formulated with trailblazing polyester resins comprised of 25 percent post-consumer recycled plastic (rPET).
Today, many coatings producers are increasingly focusing their production towards water-based coatings and are moving away from solvent-based formulations. This is to reduce the VOC content of their formulations, not only to make it friendlier for the end-user, but also to improve the sustainability impact on the environment by reducing their CO2 footprint.
In BASF’s biomass balance approach, renewable raw materials are used when manufacturing primary chemical products in the production site. The proportion of renewable raw materials is then attributed to certain sales products, according to a certified mass balance method.
SUSBINCO, which Teknos is a part of, is a research project based on the search for sustainable and safe alternatives to current fossil-based binders and coatings. The project was launched in response to the coating industry's need to replace fossil-based raw materials, and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
A multi-step continuous process has been developed to convert renewably sourced furfural to 1,5-Pentanediol (1,5-PDO), which is a low-cost renewable replacement for 1,6-HDO, a diol intermediate currently used to produce coatings, adhesives and plastics.
Over the past couple of decades, there has been a lot of discussion, R&D, marketing and sales efforts aimed at converting as many products that are based upon fossil fuel-derived specialty chemicals to “green” (biosourced) analogs, as possible.
