In line with the expansion plans announced last year (see Plasteurope.com of 20.01.2012), Polyblend (Bad Sobernheim / Germany; www.polyblend.de) has raised the compounding capacity at its headquarters by 10,000 t/y to a total of 80,000 t/y. The expansion – which is set against the backdrop of the company’s plans to grow its contract manufacture business – was made possible by a new twin-screw extruder that has replaced an older extrusion plant, the subsidiary of Polymer-Chemie (Bad Sobernheim; www.polymer-chemie.de) reports. In addition, both the parent company and its subsidiary are planning to raise their logistics capacities at the site.

Polyblend plans to expand its product portfolio by biodegradable compounds this year. The new grades are being developed with a special view towards the film industry and will be DIN EN 13432 certified. The compounder also said it is working on other developments to expand the use of biodegradable plastics, too.

The cluster of companies surrounding Polymer-Chemie find their origin in the latter, a family-owned plastics compounder founded in 1973. Today the company encompasses seven separate compounding groups, including Polymer-Chemie, Polyblend, Polymer-Chemie Rus, Sun Alloys Europe, TechnoCompound, PolyMIM and Masterbatch Winter. Their 450 employees generated sales of about EUR 150m in 2012.