Baltimore—Companies making PFAS-free alternative products for the plastics industry see change coming quickly.
As an example, Robert Sherman, a U.S.-based researcher for German additive maker Baerlocher GmbH, told a recent conference that the switch away from per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances to alternative chemicals in the manufacturing process is, at times, happening rapidly.
"What normally takes a decade, in some cases, took less than six months," said Sherman, the U.S. technical director for Baerlocher. "In the polyolefin industry, this is something that doesn't happen, you don't make rapid changes."
Sherman gathered with over 150 other researchers and executives Oct. 29-30 in Baltimore at a Society of Plastics Engineers conference focused on finding alternatives to PFAS in the industry.
Similarly, another industry researcher, Michael McClaren, a regulatory affairs scientist at Ingenia Polymers in Brantford, Ontario, said his company's development of PFAS alternatives has moved quickly.
"All of this has happened really fast," McLaren said. "Four years is not a long time to do this sort of novel product development, when we're facing down these quickly changing regulations."
Both Baerlocher and Ingenia make polymer processing aids used in extrusion, where they are designed to prevent melt fracturing and uneven surfaces on films, pipes, cables and other products.
Even those making the alternatives say that, historically, the fluoropolymers used as processing aids have worked well.
But with the human health effects of PFAS coming under more scrutiny by regulators and legislators, executives and scientists gathered at SPE's Per- and Polyfluoroalkyl Substances in the Plastics Industry conference to look at the status of alternatives in processing aids, additives and coatings.