Green tie-ups: Elix collaborates with Repsol/AnQore for 100% recycled resins; ABG, BASF and Sto use recycled PS in insulation board in pilot project

Having tied up with specialist chemical supplier AnQore and Spanish materials firm Repsol in 2020, Elix Polymers says its Elix’s E-Loop CR products are manufactured using sustainable and certified raw materials that incorporate circular and bio-circular feedstocks.

For the toy industry, “Elix ABS E-Loop M220 CR100” uses the sustainable version of acrylonitrile from AnQore, which is produced using sustainable ammonia and propylene. Repsol offers styrene and butadiene from chemically recycled post-consumer waste and bio-circular feedstocks from UCO (used cooking oil), depending on the final application and customer requirements.

These products hold ISCC-plus certification, ensuring traceability and transparency across the supply chain using the mass balance model.

Various feedstock combinations are possible, as there are three alternative sources for the three main monomers (acrylonitrile, butadiene and styrene): fossil-based feedstocks, chemically recycled post-consumer waste and bio-circular feedstocks.

Furthermore, the materials can help reduce the CO2 footprint by promoting sustainable and circular feedstocks, which have lower greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions than conventional materials, adds Elix.

Elix adds customers will not notice any change in the properties of their products, yet they will be participating in responsible, circular consumption.

Meanwhile, elsewhere, in a recently completed pilot project, German chemical firm BASF, together with the housing society ABG Frankfurt Holding and manufacturer of external thermal insulation composite systems Sto, used an insulation board based on expandable polystyrene (EPS) containing recycled material.

The thermal insulation composite manufacturer Sto, BASF as a producer of polystyrene-based raw materials for insulation boards and the Frankfurt housing society ABG have been business partners for decades. This was also the reason for implementing a pilot project with EPS insulation boards with an improved sustainability profile.

For this purpose, around 10% of the polystyrene (PS) was replaced by an EPS recyclate in the production of the raw material. The technical tests showed that the newly developed board meets the same quality standards as standard market products, the firms add.

ABG, one of the largest housing societies in the Rhine-Main region, has been focusing on sustainable solutions for the thermal insulation of buildings for years. This is why the company also provided significant support for this pilot project. The new insulation board was installed on the façade of one of its existing buildings with 52 residential units in Frankfurt am Main as part of a modernisation project.

The raw material Neopor F 5 Mcycled developed by BASF is a graphite-containing EPS granulate containing 10% recycled material.

"The recyclate comes from mechanically recycled EPS waste and contributes to the recycling loop. The aim is to use also other recyclate streams for the production in the future, for example EPS off-cuts from construction sites," explains Klaus Ries, Head of Business Management Styrenics Europe at BASF.

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