More sustainable coatings: leveraging alternative feedstocks

To meet these growing expectations, brand owners are moving away from fossil-derived materials toward materials coming from circular sources in order to preserve resources and reduce the impact on climate. The coatings sector is undergoing the same change and creating growth opportunities for bio-based coatings. To support this transition, we are engaged to accelerate the development of high performance resins and additives sourced from bio-based feedstocks by using the complementary approaches of physical segregation and mass balance.

Challenge

In the rising demand for more sustainable products, consumers are not ready to compromise. One of the challenges of brand owners is to develop bio-based paints with at least the same level of performance as fossil-based products. To address this challenge, Arkema offers a full range of high-performance bio-based resins and additives. This use case illustrates that the combination of a waterborne alkyd resin made from 97% biobased raw materials with waterborne polyurethane thickeners enables formulators to create bio-based paints with a long lasting color strength.

Challenge

Developing bio-attributed materials using a mass balance approach is an alternative pathway to meet the challenge of combining performance, circular sourcing and lower carbon footprint. In this approach, bio-based and fossil raw materials are produced in the same existing assets while the quantity of bio-based raw materials is segregated by bookkeeping at each step of the value chain. The sourcing can be implemented in the short term as bio-attributed products are drop-in solutions that enable the same level of high quality and performance without the need to requalify.