Bioadditives - Nature´s Best for Plastics and Recyclates

Representatives of additives from natural resources (“Bioadditives”) have been used for many years e.g. as plasticizers, PVC heat stabilizers, lubricants, antifogging agents a.o.. However, the need for bioadditives is growing to replace traditional fossil based materials. The growth of biopolymers enforces the requests for natural based additives to offer fully biobased systems to the market. Circular economy and mechanical recycling are other drivers to use bioadditives increasingly. Natural based antioxidants are the developmental area of choice as these additives are important for nearly all classes of polymers and essential e.g. for polyolefins.

Phenolic antioxidant structures are omnipresent in nature and can be isolated from many plants. Vitamin E (“Tocopherol”) is the classical example of a naturally based primary antioxidant providing excellent processing stability. By using combinations of natural phenols e.g based on ferulic acid efficient stabilizer alternatives to petrobased systems can be provided.

The presentation will give an overview on bio-based additives with focus on stabilizers and will show new stabilizer concepts fully based on natural resources for polyolefins and recycled plastics.