In the first half of 2024, South Korea’s SK Leaveo plans to begin constructing the world’s largest Polybutylene Adipate Terephthalate (PBAT) production facility in Hai Phong, Vietnam, with an annual capacity of 70,000 tons. Hai Phong City, Vietnam’s primary port and a key industrial hub, offers excellent logistics infrastructure and meets RE100 standards by sourcing all its electricity from renewable energy, ensuring environmentally sustainable manufacturing processes.
To expand PBAT’s applications, SKC integrates nano-cellulose derived from trees as a reinforcing agent, significantly enhancing its strength to match traditional plastics. Consequently, PBAT is used in agricultural and packaging films, containers for various consumable goods, and non-woven fabrics for personal hygiene items like diapers, sanitary pads, and filtration products. PBAT is widely used as a flexible and durable bioplastic, essential for food packaging films and shopping bags.
Hai Phong will also house a production facility for SK TBMgeostone, an SKC investment specializing in biodegradable LIMEX material. LIMEX is an innovative, eco-friendly material made from natural inorganic limestone combined with biodegradable PBAT resin instead of conventional plastic. The collaboration between Vietnam’s abundant limestone resources and SK Leaveo’s PBAT technology is expected to produce high-quality, competitively-priced products.
SK Leaveo, formerly known as Ecovance, is an investment venture of SKC (led by CEO Woncheol Park) and has rebranded as it moves towards the full-scale commercialization of its biodegradable materials.
Founded in November 2021 by SKC, Daesang Corp (Korea’s leading food manufacturer), and trading company LX International Corp, SK Leaveo initially owned 57.8%, 22.2%, and 20%, respectively, of the biodegradable material manufacturer.
(Source: Chemanalyst)
