TAGS: Sustainability / Natural Solutions Additives for Packaging
An Interview with Ulrik Aunskjær, Global Business Director of Bio-specialty Additives at Palsgaard
Palsgaard has emerged as a world-leading supplier of plant-based polymer additives designed to replace synthetic incumbents in a growing number of market segments, increasingly also reaching beyond polyolefins and packaging.
With fully carbon-neutral manufacturing sites worldwide and an advanced Polymer Application Centre, the company combines high sustainability in products and production with strong expertise in renewable additives technology for customers seeking to minimize their fossil depletion and carbon footprint without compromising processability or in-use performance.
Many of Palsgaard’s Einar® plant-based polymer additives can be used as direct drop-in alternatives to fossil-based competitors, often providing a highly effective bio-based solution at lower concentrations.
We spoke with Ulrik Aunskjær, Global Business Director of Bio-specialty Additives at Palsgaard, about how the company’s additives portfolio is addressing major challenges and trends as the plastics industry is transforming into a ‘greener’ and more circular economy.
#1. In a nutshell, please explain Palsgaard’s position and mission in the global polymer additives market, overall and with special regard to plant-based additives
At Palsgaard, we see ourselves as a driver of sustainability in the plastics industry. We offer a broad portfolio of plant-based polymer additives to the world market. Our
Einar® products are custom-engineered to help formulators of plastic materials achieve important targets in terms of:
- more efficient consumption,
- recyclability,
- waste prevention, and
- lower carbon emissions.
Besides reducing our own environmental footprint, our bio-sourced additives and our overall carbon-neutral production can also make a significant contribution to the efforts of material and masterbatch manufacturers in lowering their Scope 3 greenhouse gas emissions.
Our mission is to be our customers’ preferred partner for high-quality, functional, safe, and responsible polymer additives as well as advanced application support. This is backed by over a century of experience in natural food ingredients, by our own
Polymer Application Centre, which is the industry’s leading test and processing lab for plant-based polymer additives, and by Nexus, our independent R&D corporate backbone. The governance of our activities aligns with several of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals.
Palsgaard’s Polymer Application Centre is fully equipped to develop, test and optimize Einar® additive solutions under laboratory and production conditions
#2. Which are the most important application areas of plant-based additives and your products?
Initially, our Einar® products were mainly focused on anti-static and anti-fog applications for polyolefins used in flexible and rigid food packaging, where brand owners and manufacturers face increasing demands from regulatory bodies and consumers to optimize the food safety, non-toxicity, and recyclability of materials. The
anti-fog segment is dominated by food packaging film solutions, although we are working on a greenhouse product.
Anti-stat has a more diversified range of use, with solutions for molded, film, and
foamed packaging in various markets, including food and electronics packaging, EPS coating, and also rigid applications such as appliances and bumpers. Developers in these areas often require polymers enabling material and weight-saving thin-wall designs, which our additives support with appropriate high effectiveness at lower dosages. Likewise, low additive concentration can also be essential to ensure reliable and long-term anti-stat functionality in transparent film products.
Einar® 601 shows superior anti-stat performance over conventional GMS/amine combinations in blown film at additive concentrations as low as 0.1%
Further important Einar® grades include:
- mold release additives,
- anti-fouling additives, and
- aging modifiers.
Masterbatch makers benefit from
Einar® pigment dispersion aids, which provide a highly effective replacement for fossil-based waxes in color concentrates. Moreover, masterbatch solutions with Einar® additives are meeting a growing trend towards polymer specialties that cannot be covered by standard high-volume polymer formulations, where the additives are embedded in the molecular structure.
In many cases, the effectiveness of our plant-based products even extends to unique cross-functional benefits, such as the added anti-stat functionality in
Einar® mold release agents, which complements their release, denesting, and slip effect. In fact, one of our major distributors overseas has developed a sales tool used in the field to calculate and quantify the energy and cost savings that can be tapped by customers when switching to our mold release.
Tests have shown that manufacturers can improve productivity by up to 30%, reduce process temperatures, and generate energy savings by up to 38%. Even at low loading levels of only 0.2%, Einar® mold release agents can help achieve reduced cooling times, faster recycle times, reduced material costs, and increased recycle content.
Water tank lid molded in PP with Einar® mold release, resulting in significant energy and cost savings thanks to improved melt flow, lower process temperatures, and shorter cycle time
(Photo: Noverek/GEA/Rotoplas)
Current developments are also targeted at unlocking the sustainable and profitable advantages of our plant-based additives to more polymers beyond polyolefins, including crystalline polyesters and bio-based materials such as PLA. There is a growing demand for renewable plastics, and Palsgaard has the technology and capability to serve those trends.
#3. How are your Einar® additives contributing to the transition towards a more circular plastics economy?
It may be too narrow looking only at circularity, which is just one element in the encompassing journey towards sustainability. At Palsgaard, we think in broader terms, looking at the whole life cycle of materials and at pressing needs such as reducing food waste and saving resources. In the food & beverage and the personal & home care markets, for instance, major brand owners have set ambitious goals of reducing both their plastic consumption and their CO
2 emissions by:
There is also a growing trend towards mono-layer film structures to save weight and promote mechanical recyclability. This is where our bio-based products come into play and where we can support material formulators with customized new additive solutions.
As bio-sourced alternatives, Einar® polymer additives are a ‘natural’ choice to help reduce fossil depletion, and they have no negative impact on
mechanical end-of-life recycling or the properties of the recycle. In some markets, such as cosmetics, sustainability is marketed with a high degree of emotion and requires even the packaging to be vegan or cruelty-free. Palsgaard’s plant-based polymer additives fully comply with these specifications. They meet the strictest food safety regulations, like kosher and halal, and do not release any synthetic compounds or by-products.
Palsgaard’s bio-based polymer additives are exclusively derived from animal-free and edible plant sources
#4. How do your plant-based products compete with non-bio incumbents, or why should compounders and manufacturers switch to using Einar®?
The answer, again, is sustainability and productivity. Sustainable packaging materials with plant-based additives that improve shelf-life and consumer appeal can be instrumental in reducing food losses in a hungry world. At the same time, they are highly effective in comparably low concentrations, matching or exceeding the functional performance of many conventional synthetic additives, such as amines or amides.
This minimizes the overall required additive concentration in polymer formulations. Together with their carbon-neutral production, they offer material manufacturers and processors a cost-attractive and responsible means of saving valuable resources and promoting decarbonization.
Another aspect is the uncompromising safety of Einar® plant-based additives. Our products fully comply with REACH, and many of them can replace ethoxylated amines or other substances considered harmful to human health. And although the dose makes the poison, they would even be safe to eat. As ‘dual use’ ingredients with full
FDA and EU food-contact approvals, they are completely digestible without any health concerns when accidentally swallowed by children or pets.
#5. Some renewable products are sourced from controversial sources, such as palm oil, which is competing with food and feed production and/or accelerating deforestation. Which type of plants are Einar® additives based on, and what is your point of view regarding the use of palm oil?
Palsgaard’s Einar® polymer additives are exclusively derived from animal-free and edible plant sources. While this does include a major share of palm oil, we are taking great care to procure only RSPO-certified palm oil, which minimizes the impact on wildlife.
In comparison with rapeseed, sunflower, soy, or other vegetable oils that we use, palm oil provides the greatest yield per hectare and is the most versatile feedstock not just for our own product portfolio. Its widespread dual use as a natural ingredient in food and personal care as well as in packaging additive formulations gives it a distinct edge in terms of product safety.
We have been an RSPO member since 2008 and follow a vertically integrated approach to the RSPO certification of our polymer additives. This means that we also examine all supplied feedstock such as fatty acids or antioxidants, no matter how small a part they may play in the end product, to exclude any non-sustainable palm material content.
EXPLORE PALSGAARD'S PLANT-BASED ADDITIVES IN OUR DATABASE
- Einar® 601 — It is a plant-based, food-grade internal anti-static additive. It is custom-designed for use in LDPE, LLDPE and HDPE films, PE foams and injection molded products.
- Einar® 611 — It is a long-lasting anti-fog additive which is a perfect alternative to sorbitan and non-vegetable polyglycerol esters as it is able to match or exceed these while being safe enough to eat.
- Einar® 411 — It is a plant-based, food-grade, internal anti-static additive. It is an optimized blend of mono- and diglycerides with selected fatty acid profiles made from vegetable oils and is produced in CO2-neutral factories.
- Einar® 422 — It is a high-performance, food-grade, internal anti-fogging agent for cast and BOPP film. It is a blend of glycerol & propylene glycol esters made from fatty acids of vegetable origin and is produced in CO2-neutral factories.
- Einar® 981 — It is a plant-based, food-grade polymerization additive developed to remove severe concerns about ethoxylated amine chemistry. It is currently used as a safe and efficient alternative with worldwide regulatory approval.
- Einar® 103 — It is an advanced fully plant-based polyglycerol that is highly efficient as dispersing aid in color masterbatches where it wets, stabilizes, and disperses the pigments in the polymer matrix.
View complete range of plant-based polymer-additives by Palsgaard
About Ulrik Aunskjær
Ulrik Aunskjær is the Global Business Director of Bio-specialty Additives at Palsgaard A/S, headquartered in Juelsminde, Denmark. His focus is to develop and grow the company’s plant-based additives business on a global scale, with target applications in key market segments from food and personal care to electronics packaging.
Together with his team, Ulrik brings Palsgaard’s proven strengths to the market, combining deep and specialized application (R&D) know-how with dedicated customer support to provide the most efficient, safe, and sustainable additive solution for each application.
Through his background at Danisco, Hercules, and DuPont, Aunskjær has developed broad commercial and technical expertise in sales, R&D, business, and product management. He holds a master’s in chemical engineering from Danmarks Tekniske Universitet and an Executive MBA in Technology Management from Aalborg Universitet.