Supporting Low-Carbon Circular Green Plastics: Beijing Tiangang Auxiliaries at CHINAPLAS 2024

As global environmental awareness grows, the plastics market is moving toward greater sustainability and a circular economy.Tiangang Group, drawing on 30 years of technological innovation, will take high-efficiency weather-resistant anti-aging technology and targeted nano-enhancement solutions as the core of its presence at CHINAPLAS 2024, contributing to the low-carbon and sustainable development of green plastics — making plastics last longer, easier to recycle and more valuable in the circular economy — and enabling the substitution of reduced-quantity, low-carbon-footprint materials.

Plastics are one of the most fundamental materials of modern industry and daily life, the world's largest synthetic consumer product, and the material of choice for applications such as packaging, building materials, electronics, biomedical devices and energy storage. As plastics become increasingly diversified in "high-end" applications such as automobiles, home appliances and 5G communications, demand for high-end plastics is growing rapidly.

However, the accumulation of plastic waste from the improper disposal of plastic products has produced many negative environmental impacts. Therefore, reducing, reusing and recycling plastic waste is an urgent scientific and social challenge: it is necessary not only to reduce the amount of waste plastics that pollute the environment, but also to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions caused by the manufacture of virgin plastics..

The "carbon peak and carbon neutrality" goals bring historic opportunities. China's 14th Five-Year Plan for the Development of the Circular Economy points out that developing the circular economy is a major strategy for China's economic and social development.Developing the circular economy is an important part of the transformation of the development model.Therefore, synthetic resin enterprises, modified plastics enterprises and plastic products enterprises should join hands in shouldering this mission, adopt anti-aging technology to design long-life, aging-resistant products, fulfill their low-carbon circular obligations, minimize the carbon footprint of plastic products across their full life cycle, and form a new sustainable development model with a closed supply chain.

Against the backdrop of the circular economy, more and more industries require that a certain proportion of recycled plastics be used as raw materials for products. In the production, use and recycling of plastics, the role of plastic anti-aging additives is crucial: they can protect plastics during their service life, effectively reducing aging damage, preserving the performance specifications of recycled plastics, greatly lowering the cost of using recycled plastics, and giving old plastics new life.

At the same time, adopting "targeted nano-enhancement technology" can endow various plastic materials with "three highs" performance: high modulus, high toughness and high flowability, thereby improving the quality of plastic products and achieving quantity reduction, substitution and high performance.

Beijing Tiangang Auxiliaries Co., Ltd. is a leading enterprise in China's light stabilizer products field, with a long-term focus on the R&D of polymer material weather-resistant anti-aging technology and the production of related additive products. Its appearance at CHINAPLAS 2024 brings customers high-quality, efficient solutions for aging and PP/PE reinforcement and toughening, helping enterprises accelerate green technology innovation and development, achieve green transformation, and promote the dual improvement of business and social benefits.

Easier said than done: plastic circularity. In many countries, making recycled plastics a viable option that can compete with virgin plastics is almost unrealistic. Even more troublesome, various polyolefins are often used in multi-layer combinations, causing different plastics to be mixed together, and they can hardly be recycled unless chemical means are resorted to. According to the Global Plastics Outlook released in 2022, the global waste plastics recycling rate in 2019 was only about 8.22%.

Faced with such challenges, adding plastic anti-aging additives is an efficient solution: Tiangang's plastic anti-aging additives can minimize the degradation of recycled polymers, making the recycling and reuse of plastics more feasible.Facts have proved that the widespread application of anti-aging weather-resistant technology in plastics can bring its own characteristics into full play:

Long-lasting and durable: anti-aging technology can extend the service life of products and reduce replacement frequency, thereby achieving long-term performance. In the upstream of the industrial chain, plastic additives can also improve the quality of virgin resins, making polymers more durable and better suited to recycling.

For example, Tiangang's high-performance polymeric light stabilizer Tiangang^® HS-200, Tiangang^® HS-950 can be used for the floats of floating photovoltaic systems; depending on the float material and service environment, Tiangang® HS-200 and HS-950 can extend the service life of floats from 3-5 years to 10-20 years.

Low-carbon and environmentally friendly: By using anti-aging additives to improve the weather resistance and service life of materials. Tinaco, a subsidiary of Tiangang Group, holds the patented Tinaco^® targeted long-life, low-carbon circular enhancement masterbatch, which is used in the manufacture of long-life turnover pallets, raising production efficiency by 72% and achieving a service life of more than 5 years.

Tiangang's proprietary high-efficiency light stabilizer Tiangang^® HS-362 offers excellent cost performance and is highly favored by the market; Tiangang^® HS-625, Tiangang^®T-68, Tiangang^® T-69 series high-performance light stabilizers have excellent acid resistance, giving films outstanding long-term light stability and high-temperature thermal stability, and significantly extending the service life of agricultural films under harsh conditions such as pesticides, high irradiance and high temperature. Depending on film thickness, the original 1-year service life of agricultural films can be extended to 3-5 years.

Not long ago, Beijing Tiangang Auxiliaries Co., Ltd. cooperated technically with a well-known domestic petrochemical enterprise and successfully developed dedicated compounds for recyclable, long-life circular agricultural ground film. To date, more than 20,000 tons have been produced, and weather-resistant recyclable ground film has been deployed in Xinjiang, Gansu and other regions, serving as a good demonstration.

In addition, targeted anti-mold and anti-algae masterbatches are applied to greenhouse film algae control, extending the efficient service life of greenhouse film. These applications can reduce the waste caused by material aging and are beneficial to environmental protection.

Reducing carbon emissions: targeted technologies and products that simultaneously reinforce, stiffen and toughen polyolefins, achieving low cost, high performance and lightweighting; strength, rigidity and toughness all increase by 15% to 2 times. They have been used in the lightweighting of downstream products such as woven bags, pallets and water purifier housings, as well as in the high-value utilization of recycled PP products, reducing enterprises' carbon emissions and thereby achieving energy conservation and emission reduction.

For example, HDPE material is the material of choice for today's large mobile sanitation waste bins. However, its shortcomings are as follows: large injection-grade HDPE requires an optional melt flow index in the range of 6.5-20.0 g/10min (190°C, 2.16 kg); the higher the melt flow index, the easier it is to injection mold, but the lower the toughness, strength and modulus. Given that HDPE resin supplied by petrochemical plants cannot currently directly meet the matching requirements for toughness, strength and modulus, injection manufacturers usually blend selected HDPE resin with toughening materials, a practice that has long been scientifically and rationally disputed and limited. Beijing Tiangang Auxiliaries' tougheners/reinforcing agents, color masterbatches, light-aging agents, anti-mold and antibacterial agents and other plastic additives can effectively solve the defects of HDPE in sanitation waste bin applications and extend its service life.

Product substitution: Tinaco, a subsidiary of Tiangang Group, holds the patented Tinaco^® targeted nano-enhancement technology solution, which can achieve wall thinning, lightweighting and high performance of materials while meeting user requirements (impact resistance, strength, etc.) — that is, substituting "low-carbon-footprint materials" for "high-carbon-footprint materials", thereby reducing costs and increasing efficiency for enterprises and improving their competitiveness.

Today, from aerospace and automobiles to agricultural covering films, more or less all of the polymer and plastic materials used in these fields contain Tiangang products. With the support of Tiangang's anti-aging additives, the service life of plastics can be extended from a few years to several decades. With very little addition, Tiangang's additives can substantially extend the service life of materials and improve their weather resistance and service life, achieving a carbon-fixation effect, reducing the waste caused by material aging, and benefiting environmental protection.In future development, the company will continue to uphold the philosophy of green development, act as a pioneer in China's light stabilizer industry, promote the recycling of recycled plastics, and facilitate the green and low-carbon development of the whole industry.