French chemical group Arkema is teaming up with US-based Elevance Renewable Sciences to develop renewable specialty polymers.
Elevance will provide ‘starting materials' to Arkema to develop the new materials, officials with both firms said in a 27 February news release. The partnership “offers Arkema the strategic opportunity to expand our current feedstocks for bio-sourced raw materials”, Arkema scienitfic director Jean-Luc Dubois said in the release.
Elevance sales and marketing executive vice president Andy Shafer added that Arkema's position as a producer of bio-sourced technical polymers “is a natural fit for our unique specialty chemicals”.
Arkema already uses renewable materials in several plastic additives, including Vioflex-brand soybean oils. The firm has annual sales of more than $7bn (€5.2bn) and ranks as the world's largest maker of acrylic resin and sheet, which it sells under the Plexiglas and Altuglas trade names.
In July, Elevance announced a similar partnership with Swiss firm Clariant International to commercialise new plastic additives made from renewable materials.
In plastics, Elevance materials – made via olefin metathesis – can be used in specialty nylon resins, as well as in polyols, polyester, epoxies and polyurethane.