Issue 04/2022

Material News
Bright colours for
more green on the
blue planet
Sustainability is on everyone's lips, and the German
company GRAFE from Blankenhain is also involved
in the development of specific masterbatches for
corresponding applications. "We have been working
on the colouring of biobased and home-compostable
materials for some time now", reports Lars Schulze,
Head of Colour Development and Material Sciences.
"We were able to successfully establish the first projects
on the market and commercialise them. We have gained
extensive experience and done a lot of development
work. We will continue to push forward the projects with
a sustainable character".
Home compostable coffee capsules in
brilliant colours
Home compostable products meet the highest
standards of environmental protection, according
to the company. For example, the company has
successfully coloured coffee capsules in a very elaborate
development project. "Given the strict guidelines
according to which the masterbatches may only contain
certain ingredients and the pigments can only be used in
limited concentrations, this is quite a demanding task.
Nevertheless, we succeeded in over-colouring the dark
base material, explains Schulze. In the end, the colours
maroon, light grey, brilliant blue, blue-grey, petrol
brilliant, olive brilliant, violet brilliant as well as beige
and berry were used from Grafe's Modalen range. The
certification came into effect on 14 August 2020.
Sustainable developments continue
"We are currently working on PHBV projects",
Schulze reports. This is a home compostable, nontoxic,
biocompatible plastic that is produced naturally
by bacteria and offers a good alternative for many
non-biodegradable, synthetic polymers. "Besides the
difficulties of the biopolymers currently on offer, in
terms of processing, inherent colour and temperature
resistance, another major challenge is their colouring or
over-colouring. Both the plastic base material and the
additives should have as little impact on the environment
as possible and be biodegradable in order to achieve the
certification goals", explains the expert.
The specialists at Grafe are guided by EN 13432
for this purpose, which severely limits the pigment
selection and dosage. "That is why very brilliant colours
are the current challenge for our development team. But
we also want to solve these in the future", announces
the Head of Colour Development and Material Sciences
and lists numerous applications – such as disposable
articles and everyday product packaging.
We look forward to new project requests to continue
contributing to more green on the blue planet". MT
www.grafe.com
LANXESS offers new
sustainable composites
LANXESS (Cologne, Germany)
introduces new Tepex thermoplastic
composites that are currently
being developed starting
from recycled or biobased raw
materials. “With these construction
materials, we want to help
our customers to make more
sustainable products that have
a smaller carbon footprint, conserve
resources, and protect the
climate”, explains Dirk Bonefeld, Head of Global Product
Management and Marketing for Tepex at Lanxess. Recently,
the specialty chemicals company has launched
a fully biobased composite material based on flax and
polylactic acid on the market.
Tailor-made for structural lightweight design
Development is about to be completed, for example,
on a matrix plastic based on polyamide 6 for Tepex
dynalite, that is produced starting from “green”
cyclohexane and therefore consists of well over 80
% sustainable raw materials. As a result, the plastic
meets the requirements that Lanxess has set for its new
“Scopeblue” range. It consists of products that contain a
significant proportion of circular (recycled or biobased)
raw materials or have a carbon footprint that is
considerably smaller than that of conventional products.
When the matrix plastic is reinforced with continuousfibre
fabrics, the resulting semi-finished products
exhibit the same outstanding properties as comparable,
equivalent products that are purely fossil-based. The
semi-finished products with a green matrix are therefore
suitable for applications in structural lightweight
design that are typical for Tepex dynalite – such as
front-end carriers, seat shells, or battery consoles.
Biobased alternatives to polyamide 12
Another development focus is new matrix solutions
for Tepex based on recycled thermoplastic polyurethane
(TPU) or polyethylene terephthalate (PET) as well as on
biobased polyamide 10.10. The recycled TPU products
are primarily intended for sports equipment. One of their
strengths is their good composite adhesion with many
other injection-moulded materials when processed
using the insert moulding or hybrid moulding methods.
The semi-finished products with a PET recyclate matrix
are a cost-effective alternative to virgin polycarbonate
and polyamide, for example. The PET comes from
used beverage bottles and is also available in large
quantities thanks to the closed recycling chain for these
bottles. The biobased polyamide 10.10 is derived from
castor oil. “The composite materials made with it are
a sustainable alternative to polyamide 12 composites
because they have similar mechanical characteristics
and a comparable density”, says Bonefeld. AT
https://lanxess.com
28 bioplastics MAGAZINE [04/22] Vol. 17