LyondellBasell introduces family of bio-based polyolefins
Canadian Plastics
Materials SustainabilityThe material supplier's collaboration with Neste marks the first time bio-based PP and bio-based LPDE were produced simultaneously at commercial scale.
LyondellBasell (PRNewsfoto/LyondellBasell)
Houston-based material supplier LyondellBasell Inc. (LBI) and Helsinki-based producer of renewable diesel Neste have announced what they’re calling the first parallel production of bio-based PP and bio-based LDPE at a commercial scale.
The project, first announced last summer, successfully produced several thousand tonnes of bio-based plastics which are approved for the production of food packaging and being marketed under Circulen and Circulen Plus, the new family of LyondellBasell circular economy product brands.
LyondellBasell has already sold some of the renewable products produced in the trial to multiple customers, one of which is U.K.-based Cofresco, a company of the Melitta Group and with brands like Toppits and Albal, Europe’s leading supplier of branded products in the field of household film. Cofresco plans to use the Circulen Plus bio-based PE to create sustainable food packaging materials.
“This pioneering collaboration with LyondellBasell marks a major milestone in the commercialization of Neste’s renewable polymers and chemicals business focusing on developing renewable and circular solutions for forward-looking sustainable brands,” Neste’s president and CEO Peter Vanacker said in a statement.
“This achievement combined Neste’s unique renewable feedstock and LBI’s technical capabilities. LBI’s cracker flexibility allowed it to introduce a new renewable feedstock at its Wesseling, Germany site, which was converted directly into bio-based PE and bio-based PP,” LBI said in the statement. “An independent third party tested the polymer products using carbon tracers and confirmed they contained more than 30 per cent renewable content.”
