This week I’m going back to sustainability for composites and highlighting some developments in the epoxy resin world. And just so that everyone knows what I’m talking about – again – sustainability to me means taking the long view and making the conversion from petroleum based organic precursors to plant-based chemistry.
I especially like this pic, even though it is more of an advertisement for a plant-based epoxy resin (Entropy Resins) than anything else. Could it be that I grew up in Western Oregon and this looks like a slice of Black Walnut? Probably. Beautiful stuff!
I have talked about Entropy Resins in this space before. They got acquired by the Gougeon Brothers in 2018 to fill out the Gougeon Brothers lineup with a 100% plant-based epoxy resin. Entropy was one of the first in this sector of the epoxy industry, and obviously they have made a name for themselves by being a wholly owned subsidiary of a rather famous epoxy resin system company. Every boat owner knows of Gougeon’s West System epoxies.
We also talked about Sicomin which is a French company that makes what they call GreenPoxy® which is another 100% plant-based epoxy. While this is a fairly small percentage of the total volume of epoxy resin that Sicomin makes, it appears that it is beginning to be used in Europe for quite a few applications, especially in the European sporting equipment business. They are quite proud of the fact that European racing sailboat hull manufacturers and surfboard manufacturers have quite rapidly adopted their plant-based epoxy for their higher end products.
There is a fairly new actual farm-based company in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada called EcoPoxy® that has been in business since 2013 that makes their epoxy woodworking and laminating resins mostly for artists. The founders of this company had been farmers for several generations until they realized that in today’s market they needed to diversify. So, they put together a group of chemists, engineers, and technicians and used the plant material from nearby farms to create a plant-based epoxy. And while their product is not 100% plant-based, it is at least on the right track to become a fully sustainable resin.
In Australia, there is a company called Change Climate that has not only gone to a 100% plant based resin, they also do it without using bisphenol-A in their resin. Rather than have a phenol (6-sided benzene ring based) based polymer, they use a glycerol core which is a basic sugar alcohol or polysaccharide alcohol core. So, they eliminate the potential endocrine toxicity of bisphenol-A for their resins. And, since bisphenol-A is not a natural compound made by plants whereas glycerol can be very easily extracted from a number of plant-based sources, especially from agricultural and forest products waste. So, Change Climate has an easier go at making their epoxy resins, and they are completely sustainable.
And, if you dig a little deeper into this, you come across some of the smaller, specialty resin producers that are making epoxy resins from all manner of plant materials. VossChemie in Belgium (https://www.v-sure.eu/en/products/epoxy/bio-epoxy-resin/) makes an epoxy using cashew shells that they call V-Sure. They extract the chemistry that they need to make a two part epoxy, obviously using a plant sugar rather than bisphenol as a backbone of the epoxy, primarily for the recreational marine and sporting goods industry.
And there are other companies that are adding in up to 30-40% bio-based resin in their epoxy resins. Polytek Development Corp. has what they call a CPD sustainable epoxy system with as much as 28% bio-based resin. They are primarily interested in the recreational equipment business and have a surfboard laminating resin that has become rather popular.
Another company in Europe, Fairpoxy, has a 29% bio-based content in their epoxy resin. So, they are still under the 30% plant-based resin in their epoxy formula. Hopefully both of these companies will enhance the plant-based epoxy formulations that they have until they can eventually rid themselves of petroleum-derived organics for their resins.
Finally, there is a company here in the U.S that has been around for a long time that got their start making honeycomb core structures for aerospace applications that is getting into this business. Hexcel has a new product they are calling HexPly® that marries a natural fiber (mostly flax I believe) with a plant-derived epoxy resin system. They even offer this combination in pre-preg form that can be used in traditional fabrication processes. They are rally after the sporting goods industry and some of the first products they made were high performance snow skis for the Technica Group Ski Excellent Center which makes high end brands Blizzard and Nordica. The fiber they used in these skis was flax fiber, and the plant-based resin was clear, so it nicely showed off the warm color of the flax fiber – very much like the pic of the Porsche 911 body that I had in an earlier post. One nice thing about using a flax fiber over either glass or carbon is the vibration damping qualities of flax fiber. This causes the skis to stay on the snow and provides for a smoother ride for the skier.
That’s about it for this week. I hope everyone that reads these posts enjoys them as much as I enjoy writing them. As usual I will post this first on my website – www.nedpatton.com – as well as on LinkedIn. And if anyone wants to provide comments to this, I welcome them with open arms. Comments, criticisms, etc. are all quite welcome. I really do want to engage in a conversation with all of you about composites because we can learn so much from each other as long as we share our own perspectives.
I also wanted to remind everyone again that I have been working on my second book fairly diligently of late. This one is about what I have been writing in these newsletters for the last 6 months or so – sustainability of composites and a path to the future that does not include using fossil fuels for either the raw materials or the process energy to make composites. I did ask you to stay tuned to this space so that I could let everyone know about my progress as I write this one. Well – I just finished the first very rough draft of the book, and I have some friends and family taking a look at it to get a sense of whether or not it’s worthwhile. We will see what they say.
Finally, I still need to plug my first book, so here’s the plug. The book pretty much covers the watershed in composites, starting with a brief history of composites, then introducing the Periodic Table and why Carbon is such an important and interesting element. The book was published and made available last August, and is available both on Amazon and from McFarland Books – my publisher. However, the best place to get one is to go to my website and buy one. I will send you a signed copy for the same price you would get charged on Amazon, except that I charge $8 shipping. Anyway, here’s the link to get your signed copy: https://www.nedpatton.com/product-page/the-string-and-glue-of-our-world-signed-copy. And as usual, here’s a picture of the book.
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