TAGS: Polyurethane Coatings Environmentally Friendly Coatings
An Interview with Bruno De Bièvre, President of UBE Corporation Europe S.A.U.
Polyurethanes face a tough competition from acrylics and polyesters but it remains the material of choice by many formulators. This in fact is obvious looking at the wide array of properties it offers and the applications it goes into!
UBE has created innovative raw materials for high-performing polyurethanes that can withstand very harsh environments too. We recently talked to Bruno De Bièvre, President of UBE Corporation Europe S.A.U., about these material innovations and the steps taken to inculcate sustainability into production.
#1. What are the main trends on Polyurethane Coatings market and how UBE is leading them?
Polyurethane applications are clearly becoming more developed and moving towards high value-added applications. This is due to the versatility in several applications, and the easy tailoring for meeting diverse specification in a wide range of industries.
Then, meeting and outperforming the same functioning as other technologies is becoming tougher. New raw materials are more and more challenged to be a solution in this development for polyurethane. They obviously need to be used in current production systems.
The market for polyurethanes is mature for PU coatings, adhesives, or materials. However, it continues to face strong competition from other polymers such as polyesters or and acrylics. Therefore, the
introduction of innovative raw materials that can overcome these limitations is a common trend for polyurethanes coatings, adhesives, and materials.
#2. What kind of applications are covered by UBE solutions and what are in high demand now?
For specific high-performing and durable applications, polyurethane remains technically limited and is more expensive than other polymers. These factors tend to restrict their use. Thus, among the challenges for chemical producers, innovative raw materials must be designed to overcome these limitations!
UBE’s ETERNACOLL polycarbonate diols, and downstream derivatives, are an excellent raw materials platform for producing high-performing and extremely resistant polyurethanes. We not only offer polycarbonate diols, but also
ETERNATHANE® urethane prepolymers, ETERNALAST® thermoplastic polyurethanes (TPU) and ETERNAJET® water-based polyurethane dispersions (PUD) based on polycarbonate diols to cover a broad spectrum of applications demanding the retention of the originally designed performance over time in harsh environments.
#3. How is UBE addressing the challenges faced by Polyurethane Coatings market and help formulators?
The market for polyurethanes is mature for PU coatings, adhesives, or materials. However, it continues to face strong competition from other polymers such as polyesters or and acrylics. Therefore, the introduction of innovative raw materials that can overcome these limitations, such as new grades of ETERNACOLL® polycarbonate diols and ETERNATHANE® urethane prepolymers, ETERNALAST® thermoplastic polyurethanes (TPU) and
ETERNAJET® water-based polyurethane dispersions (PUD), is a common trend for polyurethanes coatings, adhesives, and materials.
UBE’s polycarbonate-based platforms
allow manufacturers to produce high-performing and extremely durable polyurethanes, showing maximized hydrolytic, solvents & chemical resistance, and thermal & oxidation stability, which helps to avoid downtime and increase productivity.
Also check out
4 reasons to use Eternacoll® Polycarbonate Diols in Polyurethane Coatings
#4. Can we get a sneak peek at UBE’s plans and upcoming technology developments for Polyurethane Coatings?
Besides our polycarbonate-based platform for polyurethane applications, we have launched over the last months new products for polyurethane coatings, and a wide number of different applications.
Printing inks and coatings are facing a rapid expansion in a wide range of applications to cover and protect surfaces and materials, offering excellent results with more efficient and sustainable solutions. Here, UBE has developed
UBEDISP® hyperdispersants series, which is low viscosity polymeric wetting and dispersant additives designed for solvent-based and water-based printing inks and coatings for stabilizing inorganic particles, such as pigments, fillers, metallic nanoparticles, among others.
On the other hand, UBE also produces several
DAXSOL® dialkyl carbonates glycerol carbonate, which can be used in several applications as a raw material or active solvent in coatings and paintings.
DAXSOL® glycerol carbonate is a
USDA-certified 76% bio-based hydroxyl-functional carbonate, useful in coatings, paintings and adhesives industries; as solvent, diluent and plasticizer; in synthetic intermediates; and many other applications.
DAXSOL® dimethyl carbonate is a low-VOC
environmental-friendly solvent with low toxicity and
rapid biodegradability recommended for replacing non-sustainable polar solvents, such as ketones, esters and glycols, offering fast-evaporating rate, miscibility with most of organic solvents, partially soluble in water, and similar melting and boiling points to water values.
On-demand: Novel hyperdispersants for an excellent dispersion of inorganic pigments in inks and Coatings
#5. Sustainability is a hot topic today. Can you share your vision and approach?
We are committed to achieving carbon neutrality before 2050. This implies reaching the goal of zero net emissions of greenhouse gases (GHG) in all the production processes carried out at the Spanish plant. In a first milestone we are aiming for a 40% reduction in the global energy intensity of production processes and a 55% reduction in the intensity of our GHG emissions (expressed as CO
2 equivalent) by 2030, in both cases with respect to the verified values of the year 2010.
As a first step and because of several projects to optimize our processes and the acquisition of renewable-sources energy over the last years, we managed to reach a reduction of 25.38% tons of CO
2 equivalent, over GEI emissions in the first quarter of 2022, with respect to 2010. In the next years, we will continue various improvement projects, with about 90 million EUR earmarked until 2024 to be invested in our plant in Spain, including several projects of environmental protection.
Likewise, the company aspires to become a supplier of solutions, products and technologies for a society that is increasingly decarbonized. For example, we have recently launched a new polycarbonate diol grade with a USDA certification 83% bio-based content, our DAXSOL® glycerol carbonate has a bio-content of 76% and we are planning to obtain the ISCC certified for polycarbonate diols.
#6. Could you please elaborate here how you are adapting some of the UN SDGs in your production process?
At UBE, we try to highlight sustainability from the point of view of a positive impact on the environment and the community. In this sense our strategies contribute to various targets of, among others, SDG 8 (Decent Work and Economic Growth); 9 (Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure); 12 (Responsible Consumption and Production); and 13 (Climate action).
We strive for a safe & healthy job environment, promoting safety on the job and healthy lifestyles among our employees and contractors, through training and various internal programs.
In the field of sustainable industrialization, as mentioned before, we develop raw materials for polyurethane coatings or other solutions based on fine chemicals, which become valuable inputs for environmentally friendly products made by our customers. And in the segment of polyamides for food conservation we focus on Circular Economy tools and models, with research projects on new bio-based polymers for food packaging, or recycling systems for post-consumer multilayer food package waste. This type of developments can have a positive influence on reducing plastic waste, while avoiding waste of food, thus contributing to responsible consumption.
As a chemical manufacturer, the environmental sustainability of our company is a must towards global climate action, and so is our carbon neutrality program, which currently is being deployed through energy integration & energy efficiency projects to reduce energy consumption & CO
2 emissions, the maximization of the generation and purchase of CO
2-free energy or the application of NOx emission abatement technologies. This is complemented with new mitigation measures such as the Operation Clean Sweep program which is promoted by Plastics Europe and aims to stop the dispersion in the environment of pellets (primary microplastics).
#7. What targets have been set by UBE to implement sustainability in its core activities?
Our mother company in Japan has established similar sustainability programs and, as announced in the most recent medium-term management plan, will reach carbon neutrality by 2050, progressively reducing GHG emissions, through continuous initiatives on energy conservation and process improvements in production activities, as well as maximizing the use of renewable energy sources.
It will also expand the provision and development of new environmentally friendly products and technologies, such as polyimides, separation membranes, composites or various fine chemicals, to be applied downstream. In total the UBE Group has earmarked globally ¥130 billion for investments and ¥32 billion for R&D expenditures, for the next three years.
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About Bruno De Bièvre
Bruno De Bièvre, President of UBE Corporation Europe S.A.U.), born in Antwerp, Belgium in 1960, holds an agricultural engineering degree from the University of Ghent, and is graduated in business administration in the University of Antwerp, both in Belgium.
He worked as a research assistant at the University of Ghent and then at the American multinational Fallek Chemical Corp., before joining UBE Europe GmbH (Dusseldorf) in 1993 in the business area of engineering plastics.
He has held various commercial responsibilities at UBE Corporation Europe, the subsidiary of the Japanese group UBE Corporation, in Castellón, which acts as the group's headquarters for Europe and the Atlantic Area, being its president since 2015.