Petrochemical GeneralNews PETBottles 27-01-2021 - Arhive
Petrochemical GeneralNews PETBottles
Crude Oil Prices Trend
-Market review of nylon industrial chain in 2020
- The price shows a W trend, hitting a record low.
In 2020, the price trends of nylon industrial chain have shown a “W” shape. The prices were falling in the first and third quarters and rising in the second and fourth quarters, showing sharp distinctions between seasons.
In the first quarter of 2020, the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic became a black swan event and triggered a flash crash in oil prices and aggravated panic in the market. Multiplied negative factors led to a deep fall in nylon prices, to a record low in history.
The outbreak of the pandemic also brought a significant increase in the demand for pandemic prevention materials. Entering April 2020, demand for nylon filament relating to mask ear straps surged greatly, and the market bottomed out significantly. The strong bullish trend in nylon raw material market, caprolactam and nylon 6 chip lasted nearly two months and then ended in June, as end user’s demand was not sufficiently supportive. Since end-June, nylon market started the second round of decline in the year.
-Biocatalysis in Green and Blue: Cyanobacteria
Cyanobacteria use photosynthesis to harvest the Sun’s energy to bind atmospheric CO 2 and accumulate biomass. This ability renders cyanobacteria interesting hosts for sustainable industrial processes.
The photoautotrophic metabolism allows a constant supply with oxygen and NADPH, and so overcoming limitations, often faced in biotransformation with heterotrophic hosts. Petrochemical GeneralNews PETBottles
Compared to established biocatalysis hosts, cyanobacteria lag several years of development. Exploitation of their metabolism, especially of the photosynthesis apparatus, still shows room for improvement.
Many aspects for whole-cell catalysis have not been investigated carefully enough, including mass transfer of substrate and product or tolerance towards stressors, such as solvents or ROS.
Wheat straw converted to PU foam
Every year around 734 million tonnes of wheat straw is produced worldwide, creating a large amount of waste that has had no well-defined use until now. Recently, the Chemical Engineering and Organic Chemistry research groups at Spain’s University of Córdoba have been able to give a new use to this agricultural excess material, by using it to manufacture polyurethane (PU) foam.
Also known as foam rubber, this plastic material, often manufactured from petroleum by-products, is extremely versatile within the industry and has multiple uses in the construction and automobile sectors as a sealant as well as a thermal and acoustic insulator. Petrochemical GeneralNews PETBottles
-Biome Bioplastics successfully completes feasibility phase of biodegradable tree shelter project
Biome’s Bioplastics announces the successful completion of its three-month feasibility project to develop and test a new generation of biodegradable tree shelters to be manufactured from our bioplastics.
Tree shelters protect young trees and bushes from predation by animals. They are a well-proven and economic route to limiting losses in the first five years of a tree’s life. Traditionally made from oil-based and non-biodegradable plastics, the majority of such shelters are never collected and eventually litter the environment with microplastics. Petrochemical GeneralNews PETBottles
In the UK, around 45 million trees are planted each year, most of those using non-biodegradable tree shelters for protection, with an estimated 2,500 tons of persistent plastics ending up annually in the natural environment after use. Plans to significantly increase tree planting as part of the UK’s drive to mitigate climate change will exacerbate these problems.
-Conference on cellulose fibres focuses on applications
The 2nd International Conference on Cellulose Fibres to be held online from February 2 to 3 will focus on the wide range of applications of cellulose fibres that are increasingly expanding.Petrochemical GeneralNews PETBottles
“Cellulose fibres are virtually miracle materials – almost endless possibilities and high market growth due to great demand,” remarked nova-Institute, a private and independent research institute and the organizer of the online event.
“Cellulose fibres have a wide range of applications that are increasingly expanding. The markets are driven by technological developments and political framework conditions, especially bans and restrictions on plastics and increasing sustainability requirements,” it said in a statement.
The environmental need for an industry based on renewable carbon puts natural materials in the spotlight. Cellulose fibres meet many demands: The demands of new policies, the demands of consumers with increasing awareness and a new sense of appreciation for natural materials, the market demands for diversely applicable strong and soft materials and the demands of our planet, which is already burdened far too heavy by microplastics and greenhouse gases.
-Spandex: price soars by 50%, how about cash flow?
Price of spandex increased apparently since Aug 2020 and the increment of conventional varieties such as 20-40D was around 50%. Price of spandex 20D rose by 16,700yuan/mt or 50.2% to 50,000yuan/mt and that of spandex 40D ascended by 12,700yuan/mt or 45.7% to 40,500yuan/mt. Spandex became “noble fiber” again, and how about the cash flow? Petrochemical GeneralNews PETBottles
Let’s review the cash flow of 40D in 2016-2019 at first. Based on the statistics of CCFGroup, cash flow of 40D improved driven by supply-side reform in 2016-2017. The growth rate of supply was hard to match with that of demand from 2018 to the first half of 2020, and price kept falling amid oversupply. Average cash flow of spandex 40D was at 548yuan/mt in 2018 and turned to during negative territory in 2019, at -1,102yuan/mt. Except for some leading companies, foreign enterprises and medium-to-high brands, most spandex plants suffered obvious losses in 2019.
Jwell – Spinning Spandex Yarn
-Novel Flexible and Toughened Engineering Resin
Toray leverages proprietary nanoalloy technology to create a unique flexible and toughened type of nylon.
Japan’s Toray (U.S. office in New York City) has leveraged its proprietary nanoalloy technology to create a novel flexible and toughened engineering resin.
The new polymer is said to retain the outstanding thermal resistance, rigidity, and strength of nylon 6 while delivering a bending fatigue limit that is 15-fold that of conventional polymers. Petrochemical GeneralNews PETBottles
Prospective applications for such exceptional durability include automobiles, home appliances, and sporting goods.
Toray is looking to initiate full-fledged sample work through this year while cultivating applications in diverse industrial materials fields.
-Scientists Develop Biodegradable Plastic From Marine Seaweed
The National Institute of Ocean Technology (NIOT) has developed a bio-plastic film using marine seaweed and PEG-3000 which could have a huge impact on limiting the usage of non-biodegradable plastics and a game-changer in the plastic industry. Bio-plastic films safely breakdown in the environment without leaving any toxicity. The physical and mechanical properties of bio-plastic film meet the properties of conventional plastics. Petrochemical GeneralNews PETBottles
Conventional plastics are posing a grave threat due to their interaction with water resulting in the formation of hazardous chemicals that ultimately leach into the environment. Again, other bio-plastics such as those made from plant materials like corn starch and sugarcane, though sold as eco-friendly and renewable, are found to be equivalent to seaweed based bio-plastic. Conventional plastic takes hundreds of years to break down. In their bid to find viable alternatives without hampering the land-based edible plants used for human consumption, scientists have now directed their research to find marine biomass as an alternative to producing biodegradable plastics more sustainably so that biomass used for feedstocks are not disturbed.
-If it’s up to MacRebur, the US may soon be travelling on plastic roads
Scotland-based plastic road manufacturer MacRebur is on a mission. The company says it has developed a solution that can metaphorically kill two birds with one stone, by helping to solve the waste plastic epidemic and to improve the poor quality of roads around the world today. Petrochemical GeneralNews PETBottles
Tired of the potholes in the road in from of his house, MacRebur CEO Toby McCartney remembered something he’d seen people in Southern India do to fix potholes. They plugged the hole with waste plastic and rubbish from landfills, poured it over with diesel and set it alight, so that the plastic melted and sealed the hole, he said. He wondered whether they might be on to something.
Together with two partners, he started to explore whether the waste plastics in the UK could somehow be used to strengthen the roads in the UK. After 18 months of testing and trials, they came up with a product meeting British and European standards that used non-reyclable plastic waste – from the oceans, from landfills – mixed with asphalt for road repairs and construction.
-European car market in 2020 showed a drop of almost a quarter
Sales of passenger cars in Europe at the end of 2020 decreased by 24.3% and amounted to 11,961,182 cars, Avtostat reported .
As noted in the European Association of Automobile Manufacturers (ACEA), this is the largest drop in the history of the European car market, which is due to the closure of dealerships and other quarantine restrictions in European countries throughout the year due to the outbreak of coronavirus infection. Petrochemical GeneralNews PETBottles
As noted in the review of the European car market for 2020, among automakers, Volkswagen sold the largest number of cars in the European Union – 1 million 346 thousand 999 cars (-24.5%). Renault holds the second place with 819,009 cars (-22.9%). The third line is occupied by Peugeot, which sold 741,498 cars (-23.2%). The top five leaders are closed by Mercedes-Benz (738,236 units, -17.3%) and BMW (674,654 units, -18.8%).
Earlier it was noted that the Russian car market amounted to 1 million 598 thousand 825 cars at the end of last year, which is 9.13% less than in 2019, according to the Association of European Businesses (AEB). At the same time, sales of passenger cars and light commercial vehicles in Russia in December decreased by 2.1% to 166,666 vehicles.
Petrochemical GeneralNews PETBottles