Plastics News - Show Daily - October 24, 2022 - 23

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Plastics News, October 24, 2022 * 23
SI launches Evercycle additives
for longer recycled-content life
By Sarah Kominek
Plastics News Staff
Plastics additives supplier SI
Group released its new Evercycle
platform for " restabilizing " recycled
plastics at K 2022.
Evercycle is the umbrella brand
for fi ve existing products and future
innovations that are intended
to make plastic recycling " more
circular, " Robert Kaiser, vice president
of polymer solutions and
managing director of EMEA at SI,
said at the show.
The new additives allow manufacturers
to run processing for
recycled content faster and keep
quality intact for end users, Kaiser
said.
During mechanical recycling,
" you have heat buildup that creates
or pushes destabilization of
the product, " he said. SI's Evercycle
additives restabilize the
polymers, allowing the plastics
to " stay in the same cycle and to
avoid downgrading the product
to lower ends ... that then would
fi nally end up ... in waste. "
" Usually the higher the content
of the recyclate is, the more you
need to deal with quality issues, "
Kaiser said.
By partnering with recyclers
and converters, SI group was able
to identify quality issues to address
with the additives, Kaiser
said. Common quality issues in recycled-content
products include
yellowness, lack of brightness
and acetaldehyde formation.
" The right identifi cation of the
problem is the start of everything,
otherwise you ... develop solutions
for problems that only exist
in your own mind, " he said. " It's
not a customer-specifi c solution
that we provide but we want to
supply a market solution. ... We are
collaborating in the value chain ...
not only with polyolefi n producers
but also with recyclers, converters
and machine producers. "
While discussions with customers
and other players in the value
chain are a great starting point for
SI, Joey Gullion, senior vice president
and chief commercial offi cer,
said the company's team of scientist
come up with an " enormous
number of ideas. "
" It's interesting we've found
this merging
of
their
forward
thought and a market need that
really blends toward some of the
things we try to accomplish in
virgin material being able to solve
that problem in recycled material
as well, " Gullion said.
SI's team is also working on
ways to " design antioxidants and
additives that are going in ... virgin
material, that are still present
in a meaningful way in the recycled
material so you're not adding
as much late, " he added.
The Evercycle brand includes a
pellet PET-102D for color control
in PET bottles, trays and fi bers; a
liquid PET-103D for color control
in PET bottles, trays and fi bers;
LD-104P for mechanical performance
in pre-consumer stretch
fi lm; PP-101S for stabilization in
high density polyethylene and
polypropylene fl exible packaging;
and LD-101S for stabilization in
low density PE rigid packaging.
SI
started with PET because
it's the most commonly recycled
plastic, said Irfaan Foster,
director of new
business development.
" On average the
amount of recycled PET
in a bottle is 17 percent, "
Foster said. " But
legislation is driving
that to 30 percent. "
Those new regulation expectations
give " an indication of what
the potential [for market] is for
these types of additives, " he said.
" When you try to increase the
amount of recycled PET, we get
some associated indirect problems
like discoloration ... loss of
SI GROUP
Hall 6,
Booth B08
brightness of the PET,
which is an impact for
the brand, or an increase
of the amount of
emissions of acetaldehydes,
which then can
have an impact on the
order, " Foster added.
" With the increasing amount of
recycled content, you know how
many cycles it's going through, "
Narsi Devanathan, vice president
of research and development at
SI, said. " The ultimate would be
if you keep the quality and you
have infi nite cycles, if you could
get there. "
Joey Gullion, senior vice president and chief commercial offi cer, left,
and Robert Kaiser, vice president of polymer solutions and managing
director of EMEA at SI. Plastics News photo by Marco Stepniak
COLLABORATION.
IT'S MAKING THE CIRCULAR
ECONOMY GO ROUND.
SABIC teamwork is rethinking recycling.
SABIC's collaborations are making it possible to create materials
of high enough quality for food packaging by breaking complex,
low quality waste plastics down to their original state. We can use,
reuse and repurpose more of our resources without needing new
ones. It's ground-breaking technology that's making the circular
economy reality with Chemistry that Matters™.
Meet one of the world's leading chemical
companies at SABIC.com/collaboration
MEET US AT K 2022
HALL 6, BOOTH D42
19-26 October
Düsseldorf, Germany
http://www.SABIC.com/collaboration
Plastics News - Show Daily - October 24, 2022

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