Industry News

In August 2021, Shandong Hualu Hengsheng announced it would build an 80,000 MT/year PA 66 project and a 120,000 MT/year PBAT project in China.

Among which, the investment for the PA66 project will total RMB 3.078 billion and have a construction period lasting from 2021-2023. It will include a 360,000 MT/year nitric acid facility, a 200,000 MT/year AA facility, a 42,000 MT/year hexamethylenediamine facility, and two 40,000 MT/year PA 66 facilities. Requisite utilities, related facilities, and environmental facilities will be built as well.

Investment for the PBAT project will total RMB 4.428 billion and have a construction period lasting from 2021-2023. It will include a 100,000 MT/year acetylene facility, a 720,000 MT/year formaldehyde facility (based on 37%wt), a 300,000 MT/year BDO facility, a 25,000 MT/year Nm³/h PSA hydrogen production facility, a 120,000 MT/year PBAT facility, and a 50,000 MT/year NMP facility. Requisite utilities, related facilities, and environmental facilities will be built as well.

Sources of Information: Chemical Information Weekly

PBAT is a fully biodegradable plastic, the full name of which is poly(butyleneadipate-co-terephthalate). PBAT is a copolymer of butylene adipate (BA) and butylene terephthalate (BT). It has the characteristics of both PBA and PBT, with good mechanical properties, high ductility, high elongation, and excellent biodegradability such that it is a fully biodegradable plastic.

As plastic restriction policies are increasingly popular in the global market, biodegradable materials have become the trend.

Being the mainstream biodegradable material in China’s environmental protection market, PBAT has become a popular material in the biodegradable segment due to the implementation of the plastic ban policy.

The popularity of PBAT is due to the fact that it has excellent physical and chemical properties. It has processing properties like LDPE (low density polyethylene), and film blowing can be carried out by using the similar process to that of LDPE. It is flexible, waterproof, tear-resistant, and suitable to contact with food. It has mechanical properties like PBT (polybutylene terephthalate) with excellent ductility, heat-resistance, and impact resistance, and it is often used to modify and blend with other biodegradable materials.

As one of the few materials recognized as “biodegradable,” PBAT has excellent flexibility. It is often used in conjunction with PLA, another popular material in the biodegradable segment. PLA is hard and tough, easily bends, and deforms with poor impact and tear resistance. However, PLA has good transparency and barrier properties. PBAT has good tensile properties with excellent heat resistance. Thus, the two materials can be used together to obtain the best effect.

As PBAT is becoming popular in China, its raw material, BDO (1,4-butanediol), is also experiencing price increases. The price of BDO was stable at around RMB 13,000/MT in 2020. After February 2021, the price of BDO increased continually, and price quotes as of August 13 have surprisingly reached more than RMB 30,000/MT.

Sources of Information: WeChat public account of Chemical New Material