Dow ties with Brazilian ethanol firm on mammoth polyethylene project

Polyethylene made from sugar cane will be available on a huge scale for packaging through a joint venture between Dow Chemical Company and Brazilian ethanol producer Crystalsev.

The Brazil-based production facility, which will start to operate in 2011, will serve both domestic and international customers.

Dow said it would make Dowlex PE resins for applications such as food packaging, milk jugs, plastic containers, pipes and liners.

Dow chairman and chief executive Andrew Liveris said the new site would be "the first world-scale PE facility to use a renewable feedstock".

The 350,000-tonne-capacity plant will use ethanol derived from sugar cane to produce ethylene, which is the raw material used in PE, the world's most widely used plastic.

The new process will produce significantly less carbon dioxide than the traditional PE manufacturing process.

The sugar cane-based PE will also be fully recyclable using existing methods.
Source: packagingnews