Interview with Kevin Barthomeuf, Technical Manager for Bjørn Thorsen’s Elastomers Business Unit for the Plastilien. In this interview, we discuss practical solutions for addressing the challenges of circularity using customized compounds. We explore straightforward strategies and real-world applications that Bjorn Thorsen is implementing to help customers meet their sustainability goals.

How Did Bjorn Thorsen Become a Major Player in the Development of Sustainable TPE Solutions? 

Bjorn Thorsen, originally from Denmark, now serving customers all over Europe, is a recognized distributor of thermoplastic elastomers (TPEs), offering a full range of TPVs and TPUs. In this distributor business, we are faced with various challenges, particularly in terms of flexibility: it is not always easy to find a material that corresponds to the customer's request. To offer products that meet the specific needs of customers, Bjørn Thorsen, with blessing from its suppliers, integrated an R&D lab in Lyon, France, with focus on polymer development. Initially, the objective was to offer simple modifications such as color, then in contact with major Scandinavian clients, the demand evolved towards more sustainable solutions along two axes: firstly, the replacement of transparent flexible PVC with an equivalent recyclable solution. Secondly, the development of a TPE offer containing recycled material. In both cases, the main objective was to help our customers reduce their environmental impact.

What Was Your Approach to Improving Existing Solutions?

We have developed many new interesting products. One of them being a new generation of TPOs - our Opti-Flex™ TPO range. Opti-Flex TPO is the result of ten years of R&D with the use of metallocene, propylene copolymers, ethylene, the combination of a number of polyolefins, which had interesting characteristics taken separately but also crippling defects, particularly in terms of processing. On the market, there are a lot of very interesting molecules such as plastomers, cycloolefins, but which have not really succeeded today in replacing PVC or other TPEs such as SEBS by combining flexibility, good haptics and grip properties, for example. Our innovation is to have succeeded in combining all these properties to offer a range available in different hardnesses: 60, 75 and 90 ShA, which can be transformed on standard equipment, allowing many applications requiring flexibility, soft touch properties, excellent shock resistance or sealing properties, all on a polyolefin basis. Staying on a polyolefin base allows for a relatively low carbon footprint because polyolefins, among fossil-based polymers, are the ones with the fewest chemistry steps from crude to finished polymer.

How Did You Assess the Environmental Impact of Your Materials?

We have focused on tracing the carbon history of the components of our products in order to be able to obtain the carbon footprint. A complete LCA study was carried out in 2023 with the support of ADEME and a specialist firm to obtain values that confirmed the interest of our solutions in reducing the carbon footprint compared to other TPEs. We also studied recyclability, which has become a predominant criterion. There are solutions on the market with a low carbon footprint but with limited properties that reduce the lifespan of the final product, or that make it difficult to recycle due to their composition. To avoid this case, we started with an unfilled solution, which certainly does not contain bio-based material, but which has the advantage of being 100% miscible with PP, of supporting injection or extrusion processes as well as the usual temperatures when they are recycled. The resulting product has exceptional mechanical performance and resistance to aging, and will not be degraded during recycling. In the future, we will be able to offer bio-based solutions according to the mass balance principle, once our ISCC+ certification is extended to production and in conjunction with our suppliers.