A leading producer of polymeric wine closures claims to be the first to create a plant-based wine closure.
Nomacorc LLC is using Braskem's I'm Green polyethylene derived from sugar cane. Braskem has been making the bio-based PE at its Triunfo plant in the Brazilian state of Rio Grande do Sul since 2010. Braskem converts sugar-cane ethanol to ethylene and then to PE resin.
Nomacorc claims its new Select Bio wine closures are fully recyclable and extend the Zebulon, N.C.-based company's Select series that manages oxygen permeation in wine bottles. Nomacorc says polymer corks avoid problems such as spoilage that can occur with faulty natural wine corks.
“By using Braskem's sugar-cane based green polyethylene, we can confidently offer to our customers a carbon-neutral wine closure which will not only be consistent and optimal for their wines, but also now allows them to create a more sustainable packaging solution,” says Nomacorc's principal scientist Olav Aagaard. Nomacorc uses a patented coextrusion process to make its wine closures. The firm makes more than 2 billion closures annually at plants in the United States, Belgium, China and Argentina.
Braskem of São Paulo says its Triunfo plant can make 440 million pounds per year of PE from bio-based ethylene. Each ton of I'm Green PE sequesters up to 2.15 tons of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, according to the resin major. The firm's Braskem America subsidiary is based in Philadelphia.
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