JEC COMPOSITES MAGAZINE - Issue #118 - January/February 2018 - 23

biocomposites BUSINESS

Natural fibre-reinforced plastics:
establishment and growth in niche markets

michael carus
Managing Director
Dr. asta Partanen,
Project leader Biocomposites
Conference Cologne

There are many reasons
to fill or reinforce
plastics with wood or
natural fibres of all kinds.
Optical and haptic reasons
play a role when it comes to
differentiating products from
standard plastic products.
Especially in household,
consumer goods and toys are
optics, haptics and green image important considerations.
Weight savings, shorter cycle
times, scratch resistance and
a lower CO² footprint play a
crucial role in technical applications and in the automotive
industry. In combination with
biodegradable plastics, products are also manufactured for
agriculture and horticulture as
well as for special applications
such as filter balls and coffee
capsules. Today, in addition
to experienced component
manufacturers who have been
offering a wide variety of biocomposites for years, there are
new suppliers on the market
who want to use innovative

More than 30 compound companies should produce over 80,000 tonnes of granulates using wood and natural fibres in Europe in 2017, including new producers
with major growth plans. In total, around 400,000 tonnes of biocomposites are
currently used in Europe every year, especially in the construction, furniture,
automotive and consumer goods industries. There is considerable interest in
biocomposites from various parts of the industry. Their special appearance and
haptic, green image, weight savings, shorter cycle times, scratch resistance and,
above all, lower CO2 footprint are important factors for this development .
technologies to produce and
offer even better granulates.
Over
30
compound
producers
from
Europe
offer hundreds of recipes
In total, more than 30 compound producers from Europe are currently producing
several hundred recipes with
different polymers and natural
fibres. Common petrochemical plastics are PP, PE, PVC
and TPE/TPS. More and
more often, biopolymers such
as Bio-PE, PLA, PBS, PBAT
or PHA are used. Depending
on the target application, natural fibres also contain wood
flour, wood fibres, cellulose
fibres, bast fibres such as
hemp, flax, jute or kenaf, but
also bamboo, cork or fibres
from sunflower seed shells.
The fibre content for injection
moulding granulates is usually
between 20% and maximum
50%, and extrusion contents
of up to 80% are possible.
At Fakuma, the world's largest
plastics and granulate trade
fair held in Friedrichshafen,
Germany, more than 20 exhibitors offering biocomposites

were among the nearly 1,900
exhibitors in October 2017.
The table below lists the
most important European
suppliers of wood and natural
fibre-filled and reinforced
plastic granulates with their
production quantities in 2017.
Only a few manufacturers
are able to produce and sell
quantities of 10,000 tonnes
per year or more. The largest
producer is the Portuguese
company Amorim, with its
cork granulates used in shoe
soles, handles and even in
space travel. Many producers
are still under 1,000 tonnes/
year or even only 500 tonnes/
year, although some of them,
marked "NEW" in the table,
have very substantial growth
plans. Over the next few
years, additional capacities of
more than 50,000 to 300,000
tonnes are planned to be built.
This estimation might not be
unrealistic as quality and prices have improved steadily over
the last few years and many
granulates have an attractive
price-performance ratio today.
On the other hand, new

N°118 January - February 2018

producers have not succeeded
in establishing quantities of
more than 20,000 or even
50,000 tonnes/year on the
market in recent years. For
this reason, some players such
as Borealis and A. Schulman
have withdrawn from the market, while others, including
Mondi, PolyOne and UPM,
have significantly corrected
their
plans
downwards.

Focus
Biocomposites
Conference
Cologne (BCC)
In December, the unique
opportunity to gain a comprehensive overview of the world
of biocomposites was offered
in Cologne. The Biocomposites Conference Cologne
(BCC) (www.biocompositescc.
com), the world's largest
conference and exhibition
on the topic, took place in
Cologne on 6 and 7 December
2017 (300 participants from
30 countries and more than
30 exhibitors). At the conference, the Biocomposite of the
Year 2017 Award was selected
from six nominated products.
Detailed information on the
candidates can be found at:
www.biocompositescc.com/
award.

/ jec composites magazine

http://www.biocompositescc.com http://www.biocompositescc.com http://www.biocompositescc.com/award

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of JEC COMPOSITES MAGAZINE - Issue #118 - January/February 2018