To all industries relying on high-performance thermoplastics, BASF is now offering the world’s first biomass-balanced polyethersulfone (PESU).
With Ultrason® E 2010 BMB, a polyethersulfone grade, fossil feedstock is replaced with renewable alternatives from waste-based resources and attributed to the product via a certified biomass balance approach. Drop-in solution: Ultrason® E 2010 BMB has the same properties, performance, machine processability, and certificates as its standard Ultrason® counterpart.
High-performance plastic supports many industries like household, automotive and E&E to increase the use of renewable feedstock and to reduce emissions Ultrason® E 2010 BMB contributes to substituting fossil resources, reducing greenhouse gas emissions, and increasing the use of renewable feedstock.
This unique PESU enables customers in industries as diverse as household and catering, automotive, electrics and electronics (E&E), healthcare, as well as water and sanitary, to differentiate their products from the competition. It also helps them to achieve their sustainability goals – all without compromising on the material’s performance, quality, or the need to invest extra money into new processing lines.
For the biomass-balanced (BMB) Ultrason® E 2010, a polyethersulfone grade, fossil raw materials are replaced by renewable feedstock at the beginning of the production process. The renewable feedstock, derived from organic waste, is attributed to the Ultrason® grade using a certified mass balance approach in accordance with ISCC PLUS (1).
The resulting BMB grade has a lower product carbon footprint (PCF) compared to the standard BASF material (2) by using renewable feedstock and 100% green electricity in a resource-efficient process in the production plant in Ludwigshafen, Germany. BASF also offers its Ultrason® customers transparency by providing PCF data to support them in evaluating the PCF of their own products.
This benefits many applications used in daily life, like reusable bottles for adults and babies, microwave dishes and appliances, but also automotive fuel parts, medical devices, E&E connectors and consumer electronics. In addition to these sustainability advantages, Ultrason® E 2010 BMB is a drop-in solution: The BASF PESU is identical to the standard grade in properties, quality, and certification for e.g., food and water contact.
As a result, customers do not have to re-qualify their applications made of Ultrason® E 2010 BMB or adapt their existing manufacturing processes for injection molding or extrusion; they can rely on the same high performance to which they are accustomed to. “BASF is the first company to offer biomass-balanced polyethersulfone”, says Erik Gubbels from Global Business Development Ultrason® at BASF.
“With this addition to our innovative Ultrason® portfolio, we want to enable our customers’ green transformation towards more circular solutions—and this as early as possible on their journey to meet their sustainability targets.” 50% of the fossil raw materials required for the manufacturing of Ultrason® E 2010 are replaced by ISCC PLUS certified bio-circular feedstocks, which results in an attributed amount of 39% to the final Ultrason® E 2010 BMB grade.
Reliable calculation and third-party certification for proven lower PCF
BASF has developed a digital application to calculate the cradle-to-gate Product Carbon Footprints (PCFs) for its sales products, including Ultrason®, a high-performance polyethersulfone. The PCF comprises all product-related greenhouse gas emissions that occur until the BASF product leaves the factory gate—from the purchased raw materials to emissions from operations and energy use in production processes.
Options for reducing product carbon footprint (PCF) include the usage of green electricity in production or attributing renewable materials via a biomass balance approach. In this approach, the fossil feedstocks at the beginning of production are replaced by biomass-based resources. This method is also applicable to high-performance polymers such as polyethersulfone, supporting more sustainable material solutions.
The renewable amount is then attributed to specific products at the end of the manufacturing process by means of a third-party certified method. This independent certification confirms that BASF has replaced the required quantities of fossil feedstock for the biomass-balanced product—such as polyethersulfone—that customers buy with renewable feedstock, in accordance with standards like ISCC PLUS requirements
Ultrason® is the trade name for BASF’s product range of polyethersulfone (Ultrason® E), polysulfon (Ultrason® S), and polyphenylsulfone (Ultrason® P). The high-performance thermoplastic is used to manufacture water filtration membranes, stylish, durable, and safe household and catering applications, as well as lightweight components for the automotive and aerospace industries. Ultrason® brands can substitute thermosets, metals, and ceramics in many applications because of their extraordinary property profile.