Products and Technologies for More Climate
Protection
In the year under review, all of our divisions made progress
with products and technologies for greater climate protection.
At ACTEGA, the development of thermoplastic elastomers
(TPE) was further intensified in the reporting year.
The Bremen site manufactures TPE compounds, which are
used as sealing compounds in food and beverage closures,
as well as TPE granules, which are used in medical technology
and the consumer goods industry. This product group is
characterized by the fact that it meets the requirements for
sustainability and environmental compatibility to a high
degree. For example, vulcanization, which is time-consuming
and temperature-intensive, is no longer required during
processing. This saves energy and thus reduces CO² emissions.
Even the production of the granules requires less energy
than soft PVC. In addition, working with granules generates
less dust and the amount of waste is lower. Furthermore,
the potential for migration of undesirable substances is minimized
and the material is 100 % recyclable. Chlorinated
compounds, on the other hand, pollute the environment
during manufacture and disposal. During production of
the granules sold under the PROVAMED® brand name, raw
materials are used that meet the requirements of the European
Pharmacopoeia or are biocompatible. These TPEs comply
with the regulations for food contact materials in
Germany and the EU, and those stipulated by the U.S. Food
and Drug Administration (FDA), as well as the gold standard
of the independent Cradle to Cradle Products Innovation
Institute.
ECKART further developed and significantly optimized
an existing process for the production of effect pigments
for the powder coatings industry. The new product range
gives powder coatings greater color intensity and simpli-
fies application. Moreover, these products have significantly
86 Products
Sustainable Product Strategy
ALTANA offers companies around the world specialty chem-
ical solutions that make products used in daily life better and
more sustainable. We convince our customers with added
value and give them a competitive edge through our work.
Some solutions improve the functions of end products and
increase their shelf life. Others optimize our customers’ value
chain in terms of energy and resource consumption. And
still others enable our customers to reduce the amount of
critical substances in their end products or to replace them
with less critical ones. Innovative, environmentally friendly,
safely processable products play a key role. They help
ALTANA’s customers implement their own sustainability concepts.
Based on this understanding of sustainability, the
Group continuously leverages new fields of business and paves
the way for further profitable growth.
Due to their strong customer orientation, many ALTANA
companies gear their innovation strategies systematically
to a catalog of sustainability criteria at a very early stage of
product development. This includes responsible handling
of resources (water, energy, and raw materials) as well as the
goal of developing products whose effects on the environment
are as low as possible without detracting from the product’s
function. This is reflected by the increasing number
of coatings, additives, and pigment formulations that are
conceived for water-based applications and do not need
organic solvents.
Another aim of ALTANA’s product strategy is to replace
critical components with less critical ones whenever possible.
For products that need classifications due to national or
international hazardous substance regulations, ALTANA’s
companies have special data sheets on hand that provide consumers
with important information on safe storage and
further processing. Moreover, certified lifecycle analyses are
available for certain products.