PolyOne advances sustainable lineup

ERJ staff report (PN) Frank Esposito

Avon Lake, Ohio -- PolyOne Corp. is moving ahead with efforts to commercialize its lineup of sustainable compounds.

The Avon Lake-based firm is preparing to scale up production of its Resound-brand biopolymers, which are blends and alloys of polylactic acid or polyhydroxyalkanoate bioplastics with standard polymer systems.

The products have at least 30 percent biopolymer content, but recent development work has created materials with biopolymer content as high as 50 percent, PolyOne's Cecil Chappelow said in a recent interview in Avon Lake.

“There's continued interest in sustainability,” said Chappelow, chief innovation of­ficer.

“Companies want to be green and get their carbon footprint down. They're not going back to the old ways of doing things,” Chappelow said.

He added that PolyOne has seen interest in the use of Resound in injection molded durables applications, where the products have more value.

Resound materials are intended to be drop-ins with standard resins.

PolyOne also is marketing Versaflex Bio, a thermoplastic elastomer made by its GLS unit that can have 70 percent biocontent. In early 2010, PolyOne also expects to commercialize reFlex-brand bioplasticizers made through a joint venture with agriculture giant Archer Daniels Midland.

From Plastics News (A Crain publication)