Benvic’s successful 60 plus years of PVC material expertise and compounding is now being deployed in the service of new and innovative eco-materials. On the eve of the company’s return to the Fakuma 2024 exhibition, Eric Grange, Benvic Marketing Manager show how the company has become a one-stop-material-shop for the world’s circular economy.
By Eric Grange, Product Market Manager.
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Insight
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Benvic’s successful 60 plus years of PVC material expertise and compounding is now being deployed in the service of new and innovative eco-materials. On the eve of the company’s return to the Fakuma 2024 exhibition, Eric Grange, Benvic Marketing Manager show how the company has become a one-stop-material-shop for the world’s circular economy.
In recent years we have made great strides in refining and improving our core offering; developing tailor made compounds and increasing the customer product value through.
Using post-consumer PVC recyclate presents challenges that only re-compounding skills and technologies on recycling, formulation and production can solve. In a nutshell, Benvic experience and material expertise can make recycled based compounds perform just as well as prime material.
Increasingly, Benvic is also making provision for customers at a strategic level - being able to flex with them according to the trading, regulatory and environmental landscape.
For example, it is widely established that the primary polymer alternative to PVC is Polypropylene. Accordingly, Benvic now provides a standard range of polypropylene (PP) compounds alongside our legacy PVC compounds – our DotCore range.
Our PP capacity is based on Benvic’s recent acquisition of development and manufacturing units from Celanese (formerly Softer and P Group). These facilities in Northern Italy have steadily been producing efficient PP compounds for decades, serving various markets such as: consumer, automotive, electrical applications.
Now under Benvic direction this tried and tested technology is enjoying a new lease of life: For example – and in response to customer demand - Benvic’s in-depth compounding expertise is helping design and customize a wide variety of specialist PP compounds in addition to volume manufacturing.
This means that bespoke Benvic PP compounds are now finding markets where factors such as flame retardancy, color matching, thermal resistance and other material features are paramount. Simply put – and based on decades of work with PVC - Benvic has the expertise to make it happen – immediately.
Eric Grange
In addition, we are quickly bringing the same compounding skills to bear on recycled polypropylene – the results of which are found in our DotR-PP range.
Benvic formulation science is essential here, in order to mitigate the variations and impacts linked to the recycled content. Adapting the flow - from formulations to recyclate feedstocks to end applications - is the critical process whereby Benvic helps its customers combine environmental and technical performance at a controlled cost.
And when it comes to these recycling issues, Benvic is equipped to do whatever it takes – whether this involves mechanical or chemical recyclate and even if it involves the use and replacement of other materials such as metals, ceramics and wood.
In the service of the new circular economy, all suppliers must be prepared to face the fact that all material issues are overlapping and blurred except one critical factor – the need to reduce carbon footprint and GHG.
The Benvic approach is not limited to PP: other proposals linked to an original approach from feedstock to end material (rather than virgin resin replacement) represents another way. Adapting some existing feedstocks based on their availability, cost and compliance to end product is another way for a recycler compounder such as ourselves.
Our Dotflex Thermoplastic Elastomer (TPE) range is also another important market segment where Benvic is able to behave as a key problem solver. In many applications, Benvic’s Dotflex is often a perfect complement to our plasticized PVC materials. Dotflex TPE provides the same benefits as our other compounds, namely a scalable formulation system that can solve many customer issues from optimization to compatibilization with other thermoplastics.
Naturally, biobased material solutions are also included in Benvic’s one-stop-material-shop and our ‘swiss-army knife’ approach to sustainability.
Benvic regularly uses biobased resins or fillers in our new product ranges such as ProVinyl Infinite. Benvic is also at the forefront of developing biobased feedstocks such as PLA and PHA – commonly known as bioplastics.
The initial expectation for such bioplastic polymers has been very high due to their eco-balance figures and the possibility of being compostable. To date, significant technical and commercial challenges have arisen in this niche – limiting the scope of their use for the time being. However, new approaches regarding the environmental impacts are now set to open new marketplaces.
One of these relates to environmental conditions where plastic part recovery is not possible, and where part breakage and dispersion during service prevent the traditional “3Rs” (repair, reuse, recycle) of the circular economy. In such cases, the material must have a reasonable degradation time by design in the environment. This is precisely where Benvic’s Plantura degradable products offer a much better alternative than conventional plastics for applications such as agriculture, gardening and sport & &leisure.
In a nutshell, and to summarize, the recent demands of the circular economy have succeeded in bringing Benvic’s core company DNA to the fore: Decades-strong, our expertise now works to mix and match compounds and materials of all kinds; tailoring them for customers to make lowered-carbon products at effective cost.
