LANXESS' Macrolex dyes are safe for food packaging and food contact applications.
Singapore - With an increasingly active lifestyle across Asia, on the go beverages in polyethylene terephthalate (PET) bottles is becoming the norm. According to Euromonitor International, PET is the most popular packaging material for beverages in Asia. PET has been particularly successful in China where it accounted for 60% of types of beverage packaging in 2006. PET bottles have also gained a wide popularity in India where they are used not only for water, milk and juice, but also for soft drinks and alcoholic beverages. According to the Japan PET Bottle Association, soft drinks accounted for 93% of PET food packaging in Japan in 2007. Furthermore, the use of PET bottles has grown by 36% from 2002 to 2007. Euromonitor International has estimated that the Asian PET market for beverages will hit 120 billion units in 2010 driven by sustained demand across all Asia.
However, the extraordinary growth of the PET bottle industry in the Asian market is facing a challenge due to the fact that natural PET has an inherent yellow tinge. Although this has no impact on the contents of the bottle in any way, this is of concern to beverage producers who desire to market their products in clear see-through containers. Potential customers tend to judge the quality of a product based on visual characteristics, so milk must be white, whereas mineral water is expected to be colorless.
Macrolex® Red 5B, Macrolex® Violet 3R, and Macrolex® Blue 2B from the Functional Chemicals Business Unit of specialty chemicals company LANXESS can help to offset this fundamental issue. Leading PET manufacturers use Macrolex® dyes during the polymerization process to produce a crystal clear colorless or blue tinged transparent PET. A critical feature of Macrolex® and one of importance to the PET manufacturers is that the dye does not migrate from the PET into the liquid. This inherently implies that Macrolex® is safe for use in consumer products. Most notably, these dyes satisfy the high purity and safety regulations in place on a worldwide basis for food packaging and food contact applications including approval from the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
Beer and fruit juice require protection from UV-light. PET bottles containing such liquids are colored either green or dark brown. PET color masterbatches may contain a combination of different Macrolex® dyes to allow the manufacturers to optimize the PET color for the respective applications.
Macrolex® dyes are available in a variety of delivery forms, including microgranules. Being hollow spheres, the microgranules are easily crushed and dissolve rapidly and evenly in plastic. In addition their good flowability ensures exact metering, uniform color development free of lumps, all the while eliminating any residual product in the containers.
LANXESS is a leading specialty chemicals company with sales of EUR 6.58 billion in 2008 and currently 14,335 employees in 23 countries. The company is represented at 46 production sites worldwide. The core business of LANXESS is the development, manufacturing and marketing of plastics, rubber, intermediates and specialty chemicals.
Forward-Looking Statements
This news release may contain forward-looking statements based on current assumptions and forecasts made by LANXESS AG management. Various known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors could lead to material differences between the actual future results, financial situation, development or performance of the company and the estimates given here. The company assumes no liability whatsoever to update these forward-looking statements or to conform them to future events or developments.
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