Schwarzheide plant expansion will push capacity to 17kt per year

Biopolymer producer BIOP Biopolymer Technologies is expanding production at its plant at Schwarzheide, Germany, to reach an annual capacity of 17,000 tonnes by the middle of next year. BIOP chief executive officer Frits de Jong said: “9,000tpa will become immediately available in October and around 17,000 tonnes will be available to the market from mid 2007.”

Two further construction stages will enable overall production capacity to be taken to a planned 100,00tpa, he said. BIOP produces the Biopar family of biopolymers, which are derived from blends of potato starch and Ecoflex biodegradable aliphatic aromatic copolyesters, which are manufactured by BASF at Scharzwheide. Biopar production was transferred to Scharzheide from the Netherlands in October 2005. The company has supplied Biopar products to a number of Dutch retailers, including Albert Heijn, Schuitema and C 1000.