In a market that is permanently opening up new fields … do you want to be the one to make the breakthrough?

Newly developed materials like bio-based and biodegradable polymers offer new opportunities. Oerlikon is constantly exploring innovative production processes for new materials – opening up new paths for you and your future business.

Looking back at the regulations of the European Union, among others, there are also major challenges for new materials. In that regard the Green Deal can only be realized if new European Union policy frameworks create certainty for future investments.

In the polymer processing industry, we have to come to a sustainable, closed circular economy for packaging materials and textiles, for example, while simultaneously intensively expanding the recycling of the materials used. Here, new materials also offer opportunities – opportunities that we as a machine manufacturer and plant engineering company will exploit. However, compared to non-biodegradable, petrochemical-based polymers such as PE, PET and PP, the prices for bio-based polymers like PA 5.6. and biodegradable polymers like PLA, PBAT and PBS are not yet competitive. In contrast, the properties of bio-based materials used for consumer products, especially those used in the packaging industry, are already competitive. It appears compostable textiles will remain a niche market.