Reactive extrusion technology for thermoset polyurethane resins to provide high performance and sustainable plastic materials in construction and related industrial markets.
The EU construction sector consume up to 9.4Mtons of plastic per year of which 92% are thermoplastics, mainly PVC with 54%, while thermoset plastics present superior technical properties that allow them to reach longer lifespan, a key advantage in a sector where material lifespan should reach 50 years. To do so, INDRESMAT, a chemical start-up focused on the development of high performance and sustainable construction products participating in “Redefining Chemistry”, an International Incubation Program in Brightlands Chemelot Campus, an entrepreneurial ecosystem focused on green chemistry, sustainable materials and circular economy, has developed EXTRU PUR. It is a simple, robust, efficient and versatile technology that manufactures simple geometrized products of constant section and indefinite length (2D products) made from thermoset Polyurethane (PUR), enabling a large scale manufacture of high added-value plastics widely used in construction such as profiles, frames, pipes, etc. The incorporation of PUR as structural material in extruded plastics will provide: >50% higher durability, >200%, thermal resistance increase, >100% thermal and acoustic insulation increase and >30% mechanical strength increase. The market entry will be performed with PUR profiles/frames products within the windows market, representing the major market share (28%) of extruded construction plastics with a 3 B€/y of revenue in EU. After market entry, the strategy will be replicated to pipes applications (22%), and later with other similar 2D products where PVC is the dominant material, a low sustainable plastic still questioned by the EU due to different environmental and geopolitical considerations since American and Asian PVC industries dominate over EU plastic industries.