Bitrez, Europe’s leading manufacture of specialist polymers and chemicals, will unveil a new family of regulatory compliant bio-based resins for the composites industry at JEC World 2020. The new bio-based resins are designed especially for composite applications and are REACH (registration, evaluation, authorisation and restriction of chemicals) compliant.

The new family of bio-based resins includes bio-Epoxy systems and PFA (Polyfurfuryl Alcohol).

PFA is a thermosetting bio-resin derived from biomass crop waste with similar qualities to a phenolic resin but with lower VOC emissions. In addition to its environmental credentials, PFA has fire retardant properties equivalent to phenolic, plus excellent temperature and chemical resistance.

Epoxy resins require Epichlorohydrin and Bisphenol A. By employing creative chemistry, Bitrez offers epoxy products based on renewable substitute feedstock which when combined with our green epoxy curing agents provide formulated systems with high bio- content.

Dominic Hopwood, Bitrez’s resin sales manager, said: “Sustainability and climate change are climbing higher up people’s agendas leading to an increase in calls for materials that deliver reduced weight, greater efficiency and a smaller carbon footprint. That’s why we are leading the way in developing composite reins that are derived from renewable, sustainable plant products. We intend our bio-Epoxy and PFA to be the first of many and we are excited to see how it will be received at JEC.”

Established in 1982, Bitrez offers a range of services from R and D to toll conversion as well as technical support. Its team of highly qualified and experienced chemists can produce materials from laboratory scale through a transient pilot stage to enable scale up and allow for small scale qualification work before moving to commercial manufacture.

JEC World 2020 is to be held during March 3-5, 2020 in Paris.