Natureplast & Biopolynov Develop Customized Bioplastics Formulations from Seaweed

Natureplast, a French company specialized in bioplastics, has developed with its daughter company, Biopolynov, a brand new range of bioplastics made from non-food resources.

Established in late 2006, Natureplast is still the only company in Europe to supply European industries with bio plastics produced throughout the world. Natureplast's expansion led us to expand expertise with the creation of Biopolynov in 2010, the first research and development laboratory in Europe dedicated to bio plastics. This new division aims to modify and improve bio plastics' properties according to a functional book of specifications.

For more than ten years, the bio plastics market has been experiencing strong growth (20% per year). This growth comes from the continued development of new materials/additives and the creation of new production units throughout the World. However, today's bio plastics materials cannot always fulfill market demand.

To resolve this lack, Biopolynov develops customized formulations that meet processing and use constraints of the bio plastics produced for manufacturers (extruded wrap, injected/ thermoformed/ blowed parts.

Since 2010, in order to find alternatives to raw materials currently used (cereals/sugar...), Biopolynov has been developing new innovative bio plastics made from vegetative resources like seaweed or co-products of food-processing (olive seed powder??, resources that aren't in competition with food use. Biopolynov's formulation know-how has allowed developing bio based and bio degradable substitutes to conventional polymers like polypropylene for injection molding or thermoforming markets.

These new steps are intermediate stages while waiting for the second generation of bio plastics totally made from seaweed, cellulose, food waste and are scheduled to arrive on the market in 5 to 10 years' time.

Source: Natureplast

Breville Promotes Green Practices by Offering Cardia’s Compostable Juicer Bags as Juicer Accessory

Breville Group, a global designer and manufacturer of small kitchen appliances will purchase and market Cardia's compostable "juicer bags" as part of its Juicer accessory offering to consumers.

Cardia announced that Breville Group Limited, one among the global designers and manufacturers of small kitchen appliances will purchase and market Cardia's compostable "juicer bags" as part of its Juicer accessory offering to consumers.

The agreement is expected to generate strong sales for Cardia and the launch follows on from Cardia's ASX announcement made on the 21st of August 2012.

Breville is a leader in juicer sales and has launched the compostable "juicer bags" in packs of 30, for sale.

Breville's launch in the USA has implemented the 100% compostable "the Clean & Green™" juicer pulp bag, with its Juice Fountain® range of juice extractors to encourage environmentally-friendly waste disposal practices.

Breville's USA Category Manager for Food Prep, Michelle Smith-Aiken said: "We recognized that consumers are always looking for even faster clean-up when they're using a juicer and that most were using their produce bags in their pulp bins to help with the clean-up. We saw this as an unhealthy disposal of plastic and wanted to come up with a more environmentally responsible way. The Clean & Green™ juicer bags are the solution for a faster clean up while providing a fully compostable — biodegradable option to dispose of the pulp.

Cardia's Chairman Mr. Pat Volpe said: "Partnering with a global consumer products company such as Breville on this project and the successful launch by Breville to its customer base in the USA, is an endorsement and credit to Breville as they lead the way to environmental friendly practices. It also demonstrates Cardia's versatile Bioplastics technologies as Cardia wins the confidence of a world class designer and maker of kitchen appliances"

This is an important achievement for Cardia and adds another leading global brand to the Company's customer portfolio. This also confirms Cardia's view of a global shift with major brand owners and packaging companies wanting to transition from conventional oil based plastic packaging products to bioplastics that have and environmental benefit and a lower carbon foot print.

The global shift towards green economies is gaining significant traction as individuals, companies and Governments are looking at ways to reduce their impact on the environment and looking at new technologies that can reduce their carbon footprint.

Cardia is well-placed to capitalize on this trend supported with a patented portfolio comprising a number of renewable resin technologies.

Source: Cardia Bioplastics

BioSolar to Supply BioBacksheet to Manufacturer of Specialty PV Panels for Electric Utility Vehicles

BioSolar, Inc., developer of breakthrough products and materials that reduce the cost of photovoltaic (PV) solar modules, recently announced that it has received its first commercial BioBacksheet order. The first shipment of BioBacksheet will be used for the manufacture of specialty PV panels for electric utility vehicles with anticipated further shipments to be used by military and other mobile applications. The customer's PV panels feature lightweight, high-power-to-weight ratio, highly durable, customizable shapes, sizes and colors.

Dr. David Lee, the company's CEO commented, "This first commercial order marks an important event in the history of our company. In spite of recent turmoil in the solar market, we have found success. Customers are attracted to the unique product features of BioBacksheet, including single layer composition, reliability, efficiency and cost competitiveness. Though the sales cycle for specialty PV panels can be shorter than mainstream PV panels, it is important to note that the durability requirements in this market segment are much more stringent than what is normally expected from standard PV components."

"The length of time it takes for mainstream PV customers to complete the full purchase cycle is long, but it also creates a barrier of entry for the competition," Lee added. "BioSolar is now in position to expand sales into mainstream PV market as we have completed successful internal testing, qualification, and UL material certification. Our sales and support efforts during the past 12 months have resulted in certain large customers obtaining panel level UL or IEC certifications. We look forward to achieving our next major milestone which is receiving purchase commitments from large scale solar manufacturers."

Dr. Lee concluded, "Solar is one of the fastest growing markets in the world and BioSolar is very well positioned to benefit from the surge in demand. Our patent pending BioBacksheet is the world's first and only UL certified solar panel backsheet made from renewable materials and features two distinct benefits that are unmatched by existing backsheets. First, BioBacksheet's high thermal conductivity rapidly draws heat away from the solar cells, which can increase the power output of the entire solar panel and also improve long term durability by decreasing temperature fluctuations. Second, BioBacksheet's USDA BioPreferred Certification allows solar panels to be marketed as more sustainable and socially responsible, and preferred by U.S. government agencies."

SABIC, Aster Capital Invest in FibeRio to Scale-up its Forcespinning® Nanofiber Production Process

FibeRio, the developer and manufacturer of ground breaking Forcespinning® nanofiber production systems recently announced it has completed a $13M capital raise led by two global strategic investors — SABIC Ventures B.V., Saudi Basic Industries Corporation's corporate venture capital arm, and Aster Capital Partners, sponsored by Solvay, Schneider Electric, Alstom and the European investment fund. The funding will be used to accelerate the company's commercial growth, introduce larger scale production systems to the market and execute on a growing pipeline of orders and global opportunities with industry leading customers.

"The support of two of the leading, knowledgeable strategic investors in this space, SABIC and Aster Capital, is a strong validation of the uniqueness of our Forcespinning technology and will help the company accelerate our growth, open new markets and enable new applications for all of our customers" commented Ellery Buchanan, CEO of FibeRio. "This collaboration will greatly accelerate our vision of the Forcespinning process becoming the world's leading, cost effective process to produce nanofibers at scale never before achieved."

Forcespinning is a disruptive, platform technology which enables leading manufacturers to produce nanofibers on a truly commercial scale in a cost effective way using a wide range of polymers and an environmentally sensitive process. Forcespinning is the only fine fiber production system capable of both melt and solution spinning from lab scale to full industrial scale production. Unlike electrospinning, Forcespinning does not require materials to contain certain dielectric properties for processing which limits the materials that can be produced into fiber. Nanofiber applications are used in a variety of markets including filtration, nonwovens, battery separators, textiles, biomedical and conductive applications.

Hans Kolnaar of SABIC Ventures commented "FibeRio's unique processing technology not only increases our market reach, but offers SABIC an opportunity to move further down the value chain with innovative fibers for our customers."

"We view the cost effective production of nanofibers at scale as a key technological focus for the nonwovens marketplace for a wide variety of applications in the filtration, energy, medical, hygiene and textiles markets. Thanks to our sponsor, Solvay, we were able to validate that FibeRio has a unique breakthrough technology to accelerate nanofiber growth for all levels of production. We are excited to partner with a company that will be driving the deployment of nanofibers for the foreseeable future" commented Pascal Siegwart and Todd Dauphinais, partners at Aster Capital in a joint statement.

The combined breadth of resins represented by SABIC and Aster cover everything from commodity polymers such as polypropylene and nylon to high performance materials including fluoropolymers, polysulfones, polyethylene imines, and liquid crystal polymers among others. A number of these materials have never been made into nanofibers before and can offer materials performance advantages to FibeRio Forcespinning equipment customers. FibeRio, SABIC and Solvay will all benefit through the integration of a wide range of resins with Forcespinning technology.

FibeRio's existing shareholders also participated in this financing round, including the University of Texas System - UT Horizon Fund, the University of Texas — Pan American, the State of Texas, Silverton Partners and Cottonwood Technology Fund I. As part of this financing, James Wilson, of SABIC's Innovative Plastics Strategic Business Unit, and Todd Dauphinais of Aster Capital will join the FibeRio board of directors.

Source: FibeRio

Braskem Acquires HTS System for Synthetic Biology Project to Develop Renewable Polymers

To support its research in metabolic engineering, Braskem has acquired a High Throughput Screening (HTS) system from the U.S. company Hamilton, one of the world leaders in the field of robotics. This robot is Hamilton's most modern in use in South America and the first ever in Brazil to be used for this application.

The robot will be used in projects involving the genetic manipulation of microorganisms known as synthetic biology for the development of new renewable polymers. The HTS system will allow researchers' work to be multiplied by 100 to 1,000 times in the same period of time.

To learn more details about the robot's operations, four Braskem researchers will receive special training in the United States. Hamilton also created a technical support team in Brazil especially to provide support for the HTS system.

"The HTS system is yet another tool that will enable Braskem as well as Brazil to accelerate their development of competencies in biotechnology and position themselves as key players in the bioeconomy. Braskem has achieved results in synthetic biology and advanced biopolymers on par with those of the most renowned companies in these fields," said Avram Slovic, manager of Braskem's Biotechnology Program.

Source: Braskem

EU Commission to Form Observatory to Measure Developmental Progress of EU Union's Bioeconomy

The European Commission will establish an observatory to map progress and measure the impact of the development of the European Union's bioeconomy, European Commissioner for Research, Innovation and Science Máire Geoghegan-Quinn announced today. The observatory will gather data to follow the evolution of markets, to map EU, national and regional bioeconomy policies, research and innovation capacities, and the scale of related public and private investments. The observatory will be coordinated by the Joint Research Centre, the Commission's in-house science service.

Commissioner Geoghegan-Quinn said: "It's now one year since we launched our bioeconomy strategy. We are now seeing Member States seize the opportunity offered by the transition to a post-petroleum economy based on smart use of resources from land and sea. It's essential that they do because it will be good for our environment, our food and energy security, and for Europe's competitiveness in the future. This observatory will help keep the momentum going."

The observatory, which is a three year project, will start in March 2013 with the aim of making the data it will collect publicly available through a dedicated web portal in 2014. In this way, the observatory will support the regional and national bioeconomy strategies now being developed by EU Member States.

As well as providing data on the size of the bioeconomy and its constituent sectors the observatory should track a number of performance measures, including economic and employment indicators, innovation indicators, and measures of productivity, social wellbeing and environmental quality. It will also provide a "technology watch" and "policy watch", to follow the development of science and technology as well of policies related to the bioeconomy.

Already the bioeconomy in Europe is worth an estimated €2 trillion and 22 million jobs. The Commission is considering a new public-private partnership on bio-based industries to accelerate the development of the sector. A decision is expected in June 2013.

The commissioner made the announcement at a bioeconomy conference in Dublin organized by the Irish Presidency of the Council of the European Union.

Background

The term "Bioeconomy" means an economy based on a smart use of biological and renewable resources from the land and sea, as inputs to food and feed, industrial and energy production. It also covers the use of bio waste, and of bio-based processes for sustainable industries.

The EU Bioeconomy Strategy, adopted on 13 February 2012, has three main pillars:

1. Investment in research, innovation and skills for the bioeconomy. This should include EU funding, national funding, private investment and enhancing synergies with other policy initiatives.
2. Development of markets and competitiveness in bioeconomy sectors by a sustainable intensification of primary production, conversion of waste streams into value-added products, as well as mutual learning mechanisms for improved production and resource efficiency. As an example, food waste costs the European taxpayer between €55 and €90 per ton to dispose of, and produces 170 million tons of CO. This waste could be transformed into bio-energy or other bio-based products, creating jobs and growth.
3. Reinforced policy coordination and stakeholder engagement, through the creation of a Bioeconomy Panel, a Bioeconomy Observatory and regular Stakeholder Conferences.

The strategy seeks synergies and complementarities with other policy areas, instruments and funding sources which share and address the same objectives, such as the Cohesion Funds, the Common Agricultural and Fisheries Policies (CAP and CFP), the Integrated Maritime Policy (IMP), environmental, industrial, employment, energy and health policies.

The strategy is one of the operational proposals under the Innovation Union and Resource-efficient Europe flagships of the Europe 2020 strategy. The need to increase public funding for bioeconomy research and innovation has been recognized under the Commission's future research program Horizon 2020: €4.7 billion has been proposed for the Challenge "Food security, sustainable agriculture, marine and maritime research, and the bioeconomy", with complementary funding in other areas of Horizon 2020.

Source: EUROPA

Lubrizol, Sekisui Jointly Invest in CPVC Resin Capacity Expansion to Support Construction Mkt

The Lubrizol Corporation announced recently its plans to increase its chlorinated polyvinyl chloride (CPVC) resin capacity through a joint investment in a manufacturing facility with Sekisui Chemical Company, Ltd. The new facility, which is part of the company's Phase I capacity expansion, will be located in Thailand and will enable Lubrizol to meet its global customer demands, particularly in Asia Pacific. Initial resin capacity during this first phase will be 30,000 metric tons with a total investment of approximately $50 million over a two-year period and with full operation planned by the end of 2014, subject to regulatory approvals.

Phase I will be designed to allow for a future expansion as part of Phase II that will double the size of the plant to 60,000 metric tons with an additional investment of $50 million. The Phase II expansion is expected be operational by the end of 2016.

Lubrizol recognizes the global growth potential for CPVC products and is committed to ensuring product availability. CPVC resin manufactured at this site will be designed to meet Lubrizol's and Sekisui's required performance specifications and quality standards. Both companies will continue to independently market and sell CPVC resins and manufacture their own CPVC compounds for their respective customers.

"This is a significant step in expanding our CPVC business and we are pleased to be partnering with Sekisui on this effort," notes Eric Schnur, President of Lubrizol Advanced Materials. "We are committed to providing our customers with high quality CPVC products to support the global building and construction market. And with the construction of this new manufacturing facility, we are better positioned to support their future business growth."

Lubrizol is recognized as a global leader in reliability, quality and providing innovative solutions for its customers' high-performance application needs and remains committed to ongoing investment in its CPVC capabilities that support future growth. Lubrizol's advanced CPVC technology, sold under the FlowGuard®, BlazeMaster®, Corzan® and TempRite® brands, delivers exceptional performance for the plumbing, fire sprinkler, industrial and other building and construction related applications.


Source: The Lubrizol Corporation