INDUSTRY NEWS
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Based on vegetable, or castor, oil, the Grindsted Soft-N-Safe additive compares favourably with DEHP in flexible PVC applications such as tubing, and blood and urine bags.
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Responding to growing consumer and legislative pressure for safe and sustainable alternatives to phthalates, a plasticizer from Danisco a/s (Copenhagen) can be used as a one-to-one replacement for most traditional plasticizers, such as DEHP. Tests have shown that in medical applications, where plasticizer migration is a particular concern, Danisco’s Grindsted Soft-N-Safe can be an efficient alternative to polyadipates and trioctyl-trimellitate.
Based on vegetable (castor) oil, the material compares favourably with DEHP in numerous flexible PVC applications, including tubing, and blood and urine bags. The material can be processed by means of extrusion, calendering, and injection moulding.
Produced to food industry GMP standards, the plasticizer is nontoxic and nondisruptive to hormones, and complies with REACH guidelines. “Grindsted Soft-N-Safe mimics the basic phthalates and has been approved for food contact in the European Union and by US FDA,” says Gwyn Pickering, business development manager at Danisco. Fully biodegradable at the end of its shelf life, Soft-N-Safe imparts greater softness to PVC compared with other additives and is a one-to-one replacement for DEHP, according to the firm. It is easy to process as it generally needs little or no formulation changes.
Many processors are wary of changing from one phthalate to another since the [required] R&D efforts are often expensive and time-consuming. But other companies see this alternative material as an “enabling” chemical, says Pickering, which helps some forward-thinking companies to open up new markets, gain market advantage, and differentiate their products from the rest of the field. “This is twice as important when the market is tight,” adds Pickering. “And of course there are companies that are simply concerned about the increasing pressure of regulations and are opting to move to bio-based products.” That is where they see the future, rather than in petrochemicals, he notes.
