SK Chemicals Launches New Copolyester Product with Up to 70% Recycled Material Content

South Korean resin manufacturer SK Chemicals (SKC, Seoul) has announced the launch of a new copolyester product called Ecotria Claro 300. This product is transparent, resistant to chemical corrosion, and is ideal for extrusion blow molding (EBM) processes due to its high viscosity properties.

According to SKC, the new material is particularly suitable for the production of various containers, especially those that require transparency, such as high-capacity water bottles, juice bottles and beverage bottles. Kim Eung-soo, head of SKC's green materials business, pointed out that traditional transparent materials such as PET and copolyesters often lack the necessary heat resistance and viscosity under high temperature extrusion blow molding conditions, so opaque materials such as PP and PE are often chosen to produce high-capacity containers.

He further explained: "The Ecotria Claro 300 can not only be used in the EBM process, but its properties are similar to PET and it is easy to recycle. As a result, we expect this material to quickly replace those high-volume container markets that require transparency."

In addition, SKC has partnered with cosmetic packaging company Toly (based in Zejtun, Malta; www.toly.com) to partner with its Ecotria Claro copolyester products. Toly provides high quality product containers for luxury cosmetics brands in Europe, North America and Asia. At the recent Luxury show in Monaco, SKC showed off a new cosmetic compact container made from Ecotria Claro. The company said that in an earlier program last year, the product reached 50 percent recycled material, and this year the program has increased the recycled material content to 70 percent.