Swiss company Clariant to showcase EcoCircle additives at Chinaplas

April 07, 2021 - Switzerland

Clariant will present innovative sustainable additive solutions for China at Chinaplas 2021, to be held during April 13-16 in Shenzhen. The country has banned single use plastics which has increased the focus on recyclable plastics and bioplastics for a circular economy. Clariant will showcase new additives from its EcoCircle initiative towards this end.

To support local manufacturers, Clariant has successfully introduced solutions from its AddWorks PKG series in China to further improve the inherent properties of polyolefins for the packaging of highly demanding new applications. This includes AddWorks PKG 113, designed for high speed Cast Polypropylene (CPP) and Biaxially Oriented Polypropylene (BOPP) resins providing excellent polymer melt protection and high film productivity, and AddWorks PKG 171 designed for vis-broken PP and for low discoloration PP applications. These will also feature at Chinaplas 2021, the world’s leading plastics and rubber trade fair.

EcoCircle supports the transition from a one-way plastics value chain to a circular plastics economy by going beyond a simple product focus, looking at the entire value chain, and identifying the most sustainable and viable solutions. This includes the development of sustainable solutions for mechanical recycling and the use of certified renewable raw materials to produce high-performance additives.

Qualifying products carry a designator based on their mass-balance or real renewable carbon content to help manufacturers identify products with key advantages. Among others, this includes Terra for products with a high renewable content, minimum 50 per cent Renewable Carbon Index (RCI) based on mass balance certification or real renewable content; and VITA for products from natural origin with at least 98 per cent RCI real renewable content.

New for the Chinese market is the Exolit OP Terra range, renewable-based halogen-free flame retardants. A like-for-like drop in alternative to Clariant’s fossil based Exolit OP products, 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.

Licocare RBW VITA will also be presented to customers in China for the first time. Clariant’s fully sustainable, practically 100 per cent renewable, non-food competing bio-additives solutions offer multiple processing and end-product enhancements to biopolymers, such as Polylactic Acid (PLA). And in doing so, Licocare RBW VITA opens up opportunities for brands to consider biopolymers as a viable, low carbon footprint alternative to fossil based-plastics. Clariant also introduces Licocare RBW 330 VITA, a new renewable-based solution that nucleates polyamides, reducing the cooling time and shrink/warp, yielding faster cycles, and leading to better molding costs.