Swedish specialty chemicals supplier Perstorp introduced the newest member of its extensive Capa family of products—renewable Capa for Bioplastics, a development which builds on the company’s Capa Lactide technology. Linda Zellner, Project Manager for Bioplastics at Perstorp made the announcement during her presentation at the 10th European Bioplastics Conference in Berlin (Germany), calling the new development an “exciting” one, that “opened up our possibilities to develop products that can be more precisely tuned to customer needs.”

“As a company, we are constantly striving to lessen our impact on the environment and to reduce our carbon footprint,” she said. “What we take from nature, we should put back in nature,” she said.

One million plastic bags are used per minute throughout the year. Many of them end up in nature and stay there. By using Perstorp’s renewable Capa for Bioplastics those bags will biodegrade. “Microbes love Capa,” she noted.

The renewable Capa concept enables freedom to design polymers that are flexible or hard, transparent or crystalline, tough or rigid and with a targeted melting point and polarity. Market indications show that these products are likely to deliver what many customers are looking for in terms of biobased content and performance.

During the lunch break at the conference, PlasticsToday caught up with Ms. Zellner at the Perstorp booth to talk about the new product. “What is exciting is the possibility to modify the properties by adjusting the ratio of lactide used,” she explained. “This allows us to tailor the properties to the more complex needs of customers for their applications, and at the same time, provide a solution to the waste problem.”

Marie Grönborg, Executive Vice President, Business Area Specialties & Solutions, who was also at the booth added that the development was not only in line with Perstorp’s sustainable mindset, but demonstrated Perstorp’s commitment to the bioplastics market. “We are very much upstream,” she said.

“We keep our ears open to follow the trends—we have to, if we want to keep up—and we believe in the dynamic bioplastic market which still is young, fast growing and is looking for new innovations. With an annual estimated growth of 20% according to the latest figures from European Bioplastics, we think this is an exciting market for us to be in.”

Renewable Capa has been evaluated both in terms of compostability and biobased content and is also certified as biobased by the independent Belgian certification body Vinçotte.

Perstorp will continue to focus its efforts on three fast-growing bioplastic segments—paper coatings, bags and films, and packaging. The company’s research in this area is supported by its full industrial production and pilot facilities in Warrington, U.K. and its modern Swedish innovation center in Perstorp, for bioplastic formulations.

As Zellner said: “With these capabilities we can develop and test concepts and scale up production to an industrial level. So, to paraphrase this conference’s slogan, let’s start shaping some smart solutions together!”