Polymers Petrochemicals Biodegradable Recycling 08-03-2019 - Arhive
- China – Polyethylene Terephthalate
PET and its chain loose ground,only Polyester is steady.
- Polyamide6 and its chain continue to be steady.
PET Bottle grade export 1,065/1,110 $/ton – PET Bottle grade domestic market 8,450/8,600 yuan/ton – PET Filament grade SD domestic market 7,950/8,050 yuan/ton – PET Filament grade BR domestic market 7,950/8,100 yuan/ton
PTA Taiwan 855/870 $/ton – PTA domestic market 6,600/6,750 yuan/ton – MEG $ 640/655 $/ton – MEG domestic market 5,200/5,300 yuan/ton – PX Korea 1,100/1,110 $/ton
POY 150D/48F domestic market 8,800/8,900 yuan/ton – DTY 150D/48F domestic market 10,500/10,600 yuan/ton – PSF domestic market 8,850/8,950 yuan/ton
Crude Oil Prices Trend
Asia’s benzene market has been adrift since late February after some post-holiday gains, as participants await concrete announcements from the ongoing US-China trade talks.
Spot prices were hovering in the low-$600/tonne FOB (free on board) Korea levels, from under $590/tonne FOB Korea in late January.
Trading has been cautious since late February, with market players mostly on a wait-and-see mode.
“There is now a lack of definitive price direction as players are unsure of how the trade talks will pan out,” said a Singapore-based trader.
An existing line dedicated to 500-mL PET bottles couldn’t produce more than 42,000 bottles/hr. So management at Altmühltaler Mineralbrunnen decided it had to be replaced.
Germany’s Altmühltaler Mineralbrunnen GmbH produces bottled mineral water brands for large German retail chains, hotels, and restaurants. The company has several facilities in Treuchtlingen, Central Franconia, and Baruth, a small town near Berlin.
The newest line in its Treuchtlingen facility, dedicated to 500-mL PET bottles of still or carbonated water, replaces a line that topped out at 42,000 bottles/hr. “It just wasn’t enough throughput,” says Plant Manager Andreas Wiedemann. He adds that the new line, running since 2017, provides 56,000 bottles/hr.
The Alliance to End Plastic Waste (AEPW) launched by private companies in January is set to broaden its membership to national chemicals trade groups as well as non-governmental organisations (NGOs), the CEO at US trade group the American Chemistry Council (ACC) said on Wednesday.
Cal Dooley, who also serves as council secretary of the International Council of Chemical Associations (ICCA), added that a key challenge with plastic waste would be to reuse it in order to bring economic benefits to the often-impoverished communities where a large portion of it derives from.
Together with officials from the government, Dr Frank Heislitz (third from right, CEO of Freudenberg Performance Materials) and Atsushi Shimoda (second from right, CTO of Japan Vilene Company) inaugurate the new production line. © Freudenberg
Together with officials from the government, Dr Frank Heislitz (third from right, CEO of Freudenberg Performance Materials) and Atsushi Shimoda (second from right, CTO of Japan Vilene Company) inaugurate the new production line. © Freudenberg
Freudenberg & Vilene Nonwovens brought a new production line for car headliners into operation at its Suzhou site in Eastern China. This enables the company to meet the increasing demand for high-quality car headliners in China and South-East Asia. Freudenberg Performance Materials is the specialist for technical textiles of the Freudenberg Group. In China, Freudenberg & Vilene Nonwovens, a joint venture with Japan Vilene Company, Tokyo, represents the Group.
The Uflex Booth at IndiaPlast 2019 captivated the attention of exhibitors, customers and visitors by showcasing a mix of innovative launches and proven products from its various businesses. The 5 day exhibition held at IndiaExpo Centre in Greater Noida was inaugurated on Feb 28 2019 in the presence of Amitabh Kant, CEO, Niti Aayog and Ashok Chaturvedi, CMD, Uflex amongst other dignitaries and concluded today.
Amongst the array of products on display from Uflex, what became the centre of interest at IndiaExpo was a Live Demonstration of Uflex Recycling Machine at the Green Pavilion of PMMAI. The pavillion showed how Multi-layer Packaging (MLP) Waste is recycled into pellets through a fairly simple method.
Lipnin, a filler found in plants, usually goes to waste as people think it’s useless
But researchers have found that when digested by a bacteria it creates PDC
The bacteria digests it by turning compounds in lignin into PDC polyester
They then made changes to three genes from them to make PDC the end point for the digestion process
A genetically engineered microbe may be key to producing biodegradable plastic from woody plants.
Researchers have found a unique way to genetically engineer bacteria found in plants to produce the environmentally friendly petroleum subsitute.
Proposed measures in the UK to introduce a tax on plastics packaging containing less than 30% of recycled product by 2022 is a “blunderbuss” regulation to fit political agendas that fails to recognise the complexity of the system, an executive at European chemicals major INEOS said on Thursday.
The measures fail to engage with the complexity and requirements of the plastics packaging sector, with the 30% target an arbitrary standard, according to INEOS director director Tom Crotty.
Different materials may have different requirements, and the regulation would be feasible for some forms of plastic packaging but not for others, with targets of 100% appropriate for some forms and below the 30% mark for others, he added.
European polypropylene (PP) prices are moving up in March, but the market is no tighter than balanced, according to most buyers.
– Propylene contract up €25/tonne
– Prebuying ahead of Brexit, cracker outages
The March propylene contract rose by €25/tonne, and most sellers have managed to pass this – or at least a large portion of this – to the market.
Hikes as high as €40/tonne have also been talked of.
Demand has been strong in the first quarter, according to several producers, although smaller sellers are not convinced because some applications, such as automotive and biaxially oriented polypropylene (BOPP), are facing tough conditions.
A few genetic modifications can induce a strain of soil bacteria to convert a renewable material, lignin, into plastics. The best part? Lignin is so cheap and plentiful we don’t even bother trying to use it right now.
- aromaticivorans bacteria.N. aromaticivorans bacteria.
Image credits Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center / UoW.
Woody plants show great promise as a potential replacement for petroleum in various uses — such as fuel, plastics, and chemical production. They contain a lot of sugars, which can be used for those applications, but they’re kept out of reach behind the cellulose in their cellular walls.
Those walls are so durable and hard (read: ‘expensive’) to break down industrially, that we generally don’t really bother extracting the materials.
Oil prices edged higher on Wednesday, supported by OPEC-led supply cuts and U.S. sanctions against exporters Venezuela and Iran, but gains were capped by falling stock markets and renewed concerns over demand growth.
Brent crude futures gained 26 cents, or 0.4 percent, to $66.25 a barrel by 11:43 a.m. EST (1643 GMT).
U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures rose 45 cents, or 0.8 percent, to $56.67 a barrel.
“The big picture is that short-term fundamentals are very strong,” said Phil Flynn, analyst at Price Futures Group in Chicago. “There’s still some nervousness about supply.”
