Green polyamides made from castor oil

High-Tech Plastics from the Field

Before human beings discovered oil, coal and natural gas, they primarily used plants to meet their energy needs. Besides, wood for heating and construction, wool, fibrous and dye plants for textiles, medicinal plants for all kinds of diseases—these were everyday products obtained from the fields and forests. Since fossil raw materials are finite, renewable raw materials once again represent a genuine alternative – with the key difference that we now have modern processes that allow many new products and applications to be converted far more efficiently.

High-performance plastics are classical petro-chemical products. But with oil in ever shorter supply, there is a growing demand for bio-based plastics. The experts from the Performance Polymers Business Unit of Evonik Industries have now developed polyamides from biogenic raw materials. The new polymers fulfill demanding technical requirements and are an answer to the rising demand for resource-efficient products.

High-quality bio-alternatives
Bio-based raw materials are increasingly important even in technically demanding fields of applications. Their big advantage is their smaller CO2 footprint.more

Castor oil as raw material
Evonik developed new polyamides, which are produced fully or partially from monomers obtained from castor oil. Castor oil is in turn obtained from the bean of the castor oil plant. Thus, the use of natural resources like petroleum can be saved. more

Also suited to extreme challenges
There is no shortage of suitable applications for bio-based polyamides. They have a number of outstanding features, for example, high temperature resistance, extremely rigid, high impact resistance, etc. more

Close proximity to Asia Customers
Evonik is producing the bio-based polyamides in the plant at the Multi-User-Site-China (MUSC site) in Shanghai Chemical Industry Park.more