DuPont working towards greener packaging solutions

DuPont’s Bynel co-extrusion adhesive resins, generally called tie layers, help packaging manufacturers improve their barriers, heat seal and other functions in multilayer structures such as films, bottles, pipes and thermoforming films. The resins from the DuPont Fusabond product line are modified polymers that were developed to facilitate the combination of different polymers used in hardened, filled or mixed compounds. In close collaboration with Braskem, the world’s leading producer of biopolymers, DuPont is developing renewably sourced tie-resins and polymer modifiers to extend the existing range of the Bynel and Fusabond resins. For this purpose, DuPont will use Braskem’s renewably sourced polyethylene (PE) to produce drop-in alternatives which either meet or exceed the performance of the company’s conventional petroleum-based products and are fully recyclable in PE waste streams. With the new renewably sourced Bynel grades, DuPont aims to help multilayer packaging manufacturers that have started to use Braskem’s green polyethylene to increase the renewable material content in their overall structures. Target applications for renewably sourced grades of Fusabond include applications like wood/plastic composites, starch/PE compounds and glass-fiber/PE compounds where use of a renewably sourced modifier significantly increases the renewable material percentage in the structures.

The new DuPont Entira EP compatibilizers lower the barriers for the material recycling of packaging. Even additions of only small quantities of around 4 percent to the regrind of inherently incompatible packaging polymers make for a more economical and efficient re-compounding process. Consequently the tensile strength, elongation at break and, in particular, the impact strength of the recyclate is increased to a level that meets the demands for high-performance applications. Grades optimized for specific applications are currently at the development stage.