Trinseo announced that its flagship STYRON Polystyrene Resins, MAGNUM ABS Resins, and TYRIL SAN Resins now are available with renewable content. These materials combine fossil-based polymers with renewable raw materials according to a mass balance process, resulting in a bio-attributed composition from 80 to 95 percent.

 

STYRON CO2RE BIO Polystyrene, MAGNUM CO2RE BIO ABS, and TYRIL CO2RE BIO SAN offer a drop-in solution to customers who seek to further their sustainability efforts. The materials are an equivalent replacement to their fossil-based counterparts and offer both identical performance properties and processability. The CO2RE designation indicates a measurable product carbon footprint (PCF) reduction when compared to Trinseo’s fossil-based products.

 

“As customers increasingly focus on sustainable products, Trinseo continues to invest in technologies that offer an alternative to traditional petrochemicals,” said Julien Renvoise, Sustainability Commercial Manager. “Using renewable raw materials as an ingredient is an important solution as we strive to preserve our fossil resources, reduce our carbon footprint, and achieve circularity.”

 

To produce the BIO materials, a bio-waste conversion process called feedstock cracking is used. Bio-feedstock is combined with fossil-based material resulting in material with a prescribed percentage of renewable content. ISCC Mass Balance processes and certification are involved at several points along the value chain -- after raw material refining, bio feedstock processing, and bio material production.

 

Trinseo compared the PCF of its new BIO materials with fossil-based equivalents to determine the impact of replacing fossil with renewable content:

 

- STYRON CO2RE BIO General Purpose Polystyrene (GPPS): replacing fossil- with bio-attributed styrene results in an 84 percent reduction in CO2 footprint.

- STYRON CO2RE BIO High Impact Polystyrene (HIPS): replacing fossil- with bio-attributed styrene results in a 71 percent reduction in CO2 footprint.

- MAGNUM CO2RE BIO ABS: replacing fossil- with bio-attributed styrene results in a 57 percent reduction in CO2 footprint; replacing fossil- with bio-attributed ACN results in a 14 percent reduction. Replacing both results in a 71 percent CO2 footprint reduction.

- TYRIL CO2RE BIO SAN: replacing fossil- with bio-attributed styrene results in a 74 percent reduction in CO2 footprint; replacing fossil- with bio-attributed ACN results in a 19 percent reduction. Replacing both results in a 93 percent CO2 footprint reduction.

 

The indicated CO2 reduction is based on a 100 percent substitution of fossil- with bio-attributed material. Note that the percent CO2 reduction in the constituents of ABS and SAN reflect the amount of that monomer in their formulations making carbon footprint proportionate.

 

Trinseo’s new BIO materials join its portfolio of sustainably-advantaged products. The company uses a variety of processes and methods to design materials for circularity including super clean mechanical recycling, dissolution, and chemical recycling via both depolymerization and feedstock cracking.

 

Trinseo is an advocate for sustainability and is widely known as a founding member of Styrenics Circular Solutions, a consortium that explores methods for polystyrene recycling and plays a leadership role in their implementation. The company’s commitment includes ISCC Mass Balance certification at several of its global production locations.