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Photo Credit: Dow India
Dow India Covestro
Futuristic Product for a Refrigeration and Insulation,
Sustainable Future the Biodegradable Way
The 14th Sustainability Development Goal
aims to “prevent and significantly reduce Aniline production, which is
marine pollution of all kinds, in particular growing at 5% p.a., currently
from land-based activities, including marine stands at five million metric tons
debris and nutrient pollution.” One of the annually. With a production
ways of enabling this in the packaging capacity of about one million
industry is by phasing out non-recyclable metric tons, Covestro is amongst
multilayered plastics that are finding their the leading producers. The
way in landfills and water bodies, including company requires aniline as a
oceans. precursor for rigid polyurethane
foam, a highly efficient insulating
To this recommendation, Dow Packaging and
material used in buildings and
Specialty Plastics (DP&SP) business proposes refrigeration systems.
mono material – PE-PELaminate. The PE-PE
laminate is aesthetically similar and provides Being able to derive aniline from
functionality equivalent to multi-material biomass is a key step towards
packages. However, since this laminate is making the chemical and plastics
made from one polymer it can be recycled industries less dependent on
completely. The other key aspect of this fossil raw materials and market
solution is converters can use their existing fluctuations. The process uses
machinery set up to manufacture this renewable raw materials and
recyclable laminate with same productivity produces aniline with a much
norms as achieved in conventional multi- better CO footprint than that
2
polymer laminates. manufactured with standard
technology. This also enables
Over the last 18 months, DP&SP has worked Covestrocustomers to markedly
across the value chain to generate confidence, improve the CO footprint of their
acceptability and commercialization of mono- 2
material packaging solution. We worked with aniline-based products. And the
brand owners to identify key SKUs, critical reactions would take place under
from a market acceptance perspective, and milder conditions.
with packaging converters for developing
packaging as per needs of brand owners. So
far, the product has been developed with more
than 10 packaging converters and 1 SKU has
been commercialized with Tata Salt - one of
the largest edible-salt brands in India. The
LCA assessment for these commercialized
products is yet to be completed.
Chemistry Everywhere 41
In Pursuit of Sustainable Development
