European PET Bottle Platform grants 3-year endorsement to Avantium

Renewable chemistry company Avantium N.V. has been granted an interim endorsement by the European PET Bottle Platform (EPBP) allowing multilayer PET/PEF packaging to be recycled in the European bottle recycling market.

Avantium is currently constructing the world’s first commercial FDCA factory in the northern part of the Netherlands, which, says the company, will be completed by the end of 2023, enabling the commercial launch of polyethylene furanoate, or PEF, from 2024 onwards. The first piling ceremony was held just 2 weeks ago, on 20 April.

PEF is a 100% plant-based, recyclable, and high-quality polyester with a wide range of applications, including monolayer bottles, multilayer bottles, food & beverage packaging and textiles. In multilayer PET bottles, it can be used as a barrier material to replace other materials such as polyamide, a solution yielding a full polyester product design. Not only does this result in better barrier properties, it also substantially improves the recyclability of such bottles, as has now been shown. 

An independent third party (PTI Europe Sarl) assessed the impact of multilayer PET bottles containing 10% PEF on the PET recycling stream in accordance with the EPBP protocol. The results showed that the PET/PEF multilayer bottles have no negative impact on haze and other properties of the resulting rPET products at a market penetration of 5%, also taking potential local accumulation into account. This outcome led EPBP to grant an interim endorsement to Avantium’s PEF resin.

The endorsement is an important milestone for the market introduction of PEF, said Dirk De Cuyper, CEO of Resilux. Resilux, an international rigid plastic packaging supplier, signed a conditional offtake agreement for PEF with Avantium in 2021.

“We believe that PEF as a barrier material will significantly improve the circularity of high barrier bottles for carbonated and/or perishable beverages. The results leading to this interim endorsement show the potential of combining the PEF performance in PET product designs. We look forward teaming up with our customers to further close the loop for PET recycling, ” he said.

 The interim endorsement expires on 30 June 2025. This interim period allows Avantium to collect data from the recycling market at scale, once Avantium’s commercial plant is operational, expected in 2024. If the data is line with its guidelines, EPBP will convert the endorsement to a full endorsement.