TAGS: Green and Bioplastics
Over the next three years, Senbis in Emmen, the Netherlands, will be investing €5.5 million through its new subsidiary SPIC Facilities BV, in a testing facility for the development of sustainable plastics.
Multi-million Investment in R&D Infrastructure
The investment enables it to develop textile fibers from e.g. recycled polymers or biopolymers. With the new extruders and spinning machines, SPIC Facilities will furthermore be able to manufacture bicomponent yarns. The typical requirements of yarns are good mechanical and thermal properties and e.g. chemical stability.
This may be reached by utilizing multiple polymers and additives. This can be accomplished by compounding them, but also by combining the output of multiple extruders. For example, it will be possible to create a filament or fiber whose mantle consists of a different material than its core. Another area of attention is the development of filaments and powders for 3D printing.
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We will be acquiring an impressive range of machinery that will make successive polymer production processes available at different scales: from grams and kilograms to full truck loads,’ says Gerard Nijhoving.
This represents a considerable expansion of the facilities of SPIC Emmen, the cluster of companies and institutions in the Northern Netherlands that jointly offer their own facilities to the market. This way they facilitate the acceleration and upscaling of developments relating to sustainable plastics.
Missing Link in R&D Capabilities
With SPIC facilities, Senbis provides the missing link for (bio)polymer development in the Chemport Europe ecosystem. The investments include new reactors for polycondensation, for example for developing (bio)polyesters and polyamides, a fully equipped compounder, a new line for the production of technical mono-filaments and an expansion of analytical capabilities.
Source: Senbis