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Report

Teaser, summary, work performed and final results

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - EXTRU-PUR (Reactive Extrusion Technology for Thermoset Polyurethane Resins to Provide High Performance and Sustainable Plastic Materials in Construction and Related Industrial Markets.)

Teaser

Summary

Extrusion is the most productive manufacturing process in construction plastics, but nowadays it is only appropriate for thermoplastics (PE, PP, PVC, PET, PS, PC, etc). Thermoplastics extrusion involves a high energy expenditure due to the high pressure and temperature required to melt the material during the manufacturing. In construction, PVC shares 54% of all plastic used, and extruded products (profiles, frames, pipes, downspouts, etc) represent around 70% of all plastic applications. PVC is a highly questioned plastic which environmental concerns (dioxins when burned, Bisfenol-A as plasticizers, organo-chlorinated compounds when degraded, etc) are still being discussed by the EU Comission. Moreover, the fossil-origin of thermoplastics makes altogether conventional extrusion a low sustainable technology.

On the other hand, PUR (Polyurethane), the most versatile polymer material with a great potential to be implemented in the construction market as structural and functional plastic, shows excellent thermal, mechanical & chemical properties with one of the highest thermal and acoustic insulating capacity. In addition, PUR has a high potential biobased content (up to 90%) with the greatest production capacity of all bio-based plastics (>2.000 Mtons/y). However, this high performance plastic material lacked for a long time of an appropriate continuous technology to provide extruded products. To address this issue, INDRESMAT has launched EXTRU-PUR, a low energy consuming and highly productive process that enables for first time the use of PUR in extruded products to increase the technical properties, durability and high performance of construction plastics, making them more circular materials by the use of renewable resources and its ease to recycle the end-of-life products.

To fight Climate Change, nowadays the priority is reducing fossil CO2 emissions in all sectors, and particularly in the construction market (the 2nd highest plastic consuming market), buildings are responsible of 40% of Carbon Emissions, where 65% of them come from space heating. This situation has generated a high interest in the use of new clean energy sources, and at the same time, the reduction of energy consumption where insulation is a crucial activity to achieve the Nearly Zero Energy Buildings. Around a 25% of the energy lost through the windows (the main weak points for heat leaking in faÃ§ades) is due to thermal conduction through the frames & profiles. This is why Highly Energy Efficient Windows (HEEW) existing in the market use combinations of different materials to introduce a thermal barrier. However, these complex multimaterial windows makes difficult the recycling at end-of-life.

Considering the low energy consumption of our extrusion technology, the high technical properties, insulation capacity & sustainability of PUR, together with the need for reducing heat leaking and improve the circularity and sustainability of window materials; EXTRU-PUR technology will provide window frames & profiles made from PUR as single material and will definitely become a game changer when implemented at large scale in the rising construction plastics market.

Work performed

During the 6 months of the Feasibility Study, at INDRESMAT we have worked intensively to determine with confident accuracy the business potential of our project EXTRU-PUR based on the 3 main activities:

1) The technical feasibility, which has been demonstrated for the extrusion process of a bar, allowing us to find out the required parameters that will be used as starting point to design and scale-up our technology. During the extrusion tests we have also determined the throughput that will reach our technology, enabling calculations of the potential productivity and energy consumption of the process to estimate the final price of EXTRU-PUR products. In addition to the process feasibility, we have developed new biobased formulations and developed pre-market products, which will be certified to demonstrate their high performance & benefits and ensure a fast market entry.

2) A commercial plan was established to perform a successful market entry of our products within the highly energy windows market, enabling a commercial & internationalization strategy for the market deployment based on a complete market study analyzing competitors and targeting the most appropriate segments, regions & potential sources of end-users.

3) A financial plan was elaborated to ensure a successful development and automation of EXTRU-PUR technology by reporting the funding sources, the budget required and the scheduled tasks to be performed in SME Instrument Phase 2. This financial plan also contains a realistic sales forecast and the estimated Profit & Loss account that demonstrates the viability of our company for the next 6 years and the high market potential of our project.

The results of this Feasibility Study will be disseminated to our partners, collaborators and potential investors in EXTRU-PUR project. In addition, INDRESMAT will participate in several events during next months: European Chemistry Partnering at DÃ¼sseldorf on Sep 26th, Nearly Zero Energy Buildings Conference at Madrid on Oct 23rd and Advances in Plastics Conference at Chorzow on Oct 30th.

Final results

The extrusion of thermoset PUR is a topic roughly addressed in the past with other thermosetting resins (polyester, epoxi, etc). Until nowadays, no extrusion technology for thermosetting resins (or products related) reached the market and therefore, extrusion of thermoset PUR has remained underdeveloped. An analogue technology to EXTRU-PUR is pultrusion, a continuous manufacturing process that use glass fibers acting as a pulling system while embodied in PUR resins provide excellent mechanical properties to the resulting composite materials. However, pultruded PUR products are very difficult to recycle because of the presence of glass fibers, and opposite to these composites, EXTRU-PUR provides single structural materials with no need for separation when recycled at end-of life. Therefore, our progress in the process feasibility with the demonstration of a bar manufacturing and the progress related with pre-market products validation represent both crucial steps forward in the state of the art for PUR extruded products.

At the end of the project, it is expected that a fully automated extrusion technology will be ready for industrial implementation (2023), allowing our company to perform the market entry within window frames & profiles segment employing around 30 permanent workers to achieve a 6Mâ‚¬ revenue in 2025 (targeting a 250Mâ‚¬ by 2030). To secure a successful business, our company will perform a strategic commercial plan for the market entry in targeted countries, being supported by a proper financial plan based on the scalability of our business. The expected results for the product are cost savings in energy consumption higher than 10%, while reducing the energy consumption more than a 50% for the profiles & frames manufacturing. Our target regarding PUR formulations is to reduce the C-Footprint employing a biobased content greater than 40% and 100% recyclable at end-of-life.

Societal implications are related with:
âœ“ Contribute to achieve Nearly Zero Energy Efficient Buildings,
âœ“ Enhance de use of sustainable circular (bio)plastics
âœ“ Reduction of environmental impact of PVC as dominant plastic
âœ“ Dynamization of Biodiesel industry impact & new oils recycling.