20 • September 2013 Chemical Engineering World

News FeaturesCEW

Cutting Edge Solutions for Polymers & Solar Industries

Established in 1994, Pluss Polymers is a polymers research and manufacturing company involved in

the field of speciality polymeric additives and phase change materials for thermal energy storage. Pluss has been a constant trendsetter in its field, being the first in the country to commercially manufacture functionalised polymers for improving compatibilisation and processing of polymer composites. Pluss also bears the distinction of pioneering Phase Change Materials for a wide variety of applications in the country and is among the distinguished few in the world heading this revolution.

The company has been on a growth path for the last few years. It seen a growth of 30-35 per cent in the last three years. Company has expanded its geographical presence in USA, Turkey and Thailand. The range of products has increased manifolds. Pluss Polymers is also starting a new manufacturing unit in Bawal and have a second one planned in 2014-15. To sustain the growth, the company is also investing in human resource and the number of employees has touched 100 last month.

On the sidelines of India Cold Chain Show 2013 in Mumbai, Harshal Y Desai caught up with Samit Jain, Managing Director, Pluss Polymers, to know about company’s products and services, its technologies and innovations, and more importantly – significance of speciality polymers and Phase Change Materials. Edited excerpts...

Significance of Speciality Polymers Speciality polymers are produced by chemical grafting of reactive monomers like

maleic anhydride, glycidyl methacrylate and other similar materials on polyolefin. They possess superior properties than the simple polyolefin in terms of polarity, adhesion to different substrates, compatibility with reinforcements and fil lers and so on. Speciality polymers are used as coupling agents, compatibilisers, wetting/dispersing agents, impact modifiers, flow modifiers, scrap upgraders and chain extenders for polymer compounds. Pluss markets these speciality polymers under the brand names OPTIM®, OPTIPET™ and NOVIS™. These enhance properties of polymer compounds thus enabling their increased adoption in white goods, automotives, wire and cables, wood plastics composites and plastics film industries besides several others.

With the increasing number of global automotive and white goods players setting up manufacturing unit in India, the need of speciality polymers to get improved properties will increase. All these speciality polymers are currently imported with only Pluss manufacturing it in India. However, these imports are not sustainable considering the demand and supply constraints. Companies will definitely look for a local source and Pluss is already gearing up for it.

We are increasing our capacity for speciality polymers from 800 tonnes/annum to 1800 tonnes/annum by Nov 2013. We believe the increase in demand will also bring in more local and international players. The competition will increase to benefit all.

Samit JainManaging DirectorPluss Polymers

The company has been on a growth path for the last few years. It seen a growth of 30-35 per cent in the last three years.

In Nov 2012, Pluss Polymers had an equity infusion from Tata Capital Innovations Fund. With this new association, the organisation envisions putting itself on the world innovation map with consistent and pragmatic innovations. The company’s mission is to provide solutions to create a definitive change in the polymers and thermal energy storage industry.

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22 • September 2013 Chemical Engineering World

News FeaturesCEW

Pluss’s technology and products contribution in area of plastic recyclingOn April 4, 2013 Supreme Court of India said “We are sitting on a plastic time bomb”. According to Central Pollution Control Board, India generates approximately 56 lakh tonnes of plastics waste annually and only 60 per cent of this waste is recycled. As 40 per cent of plastics waste is not recycled, this waste is a source of continuing pollution as plastics is not bio-degradable.

More than 50 per cent of the plastic waste generated is from the packaging, automobile and white goods industry. The most common plastics are polyesters (the common plastic for mineral water and cold drinks), polypropylene (mostly used in automobiles), polyethylene (the infamous carry bags) and nylon (automobile under the hood parts). Recycling of these plastics has its own issues. The presence of other materials like aluminum and metals in the plastic waste makes it difficult to recycle. The properties of plastics deteriorate after recycling and therefore cannot be used in the same application.

Moreover, compatibilisation is difficult because of the presence of combination of polymers in the plastic waste. These problems of recycling mixed wastes have been the basis of research at Pluss Polymers. The company has launched Optipet, an additive which helps in conversion of unusable waste materials to high value products. Optipet designed especially to improve the properties of waste PET has been a result of indigenous R&D at Pluss.

We have been actively engaged in finding solutions to environmental problems posed by polymers – Pluss was the first Indian company to also design special additives for upgrading nylon waste to the equivalent virgin grades used in the industry. PLUSS has the knowledge base and provides consultancy to manufacturers for recycling packaging waste which consists of paper, aluminium, and layers of plastics (tetrapak packaging).

Proposed ‘Plastic Parks’ and thier Impact on Pluss’s Grwoth StrategyPluss is looking at setting up new manufacturing units 3 years down the

line. For these new units, we will explore the opportunity of taking land in the upcoming plastic parks. The focus of the company is a lot more exports. Plastics parks because of its close proximity to the port will help us become price competitive in exports. Moreover, the combined maintenance facility in the plastic parks will reduce the burden of providing all ancillary facilit ies within the factory, such as ETP plants etc.

Another benefit that we foresee is that with the setup of plastics parks, our customers, who choose to shift there, will become price competitive which would result in their growth and in turn ours. It would also mean that so many more companies will come up and therefore the overall industry will grow, including us.

Phase Change Materials and its ApplicationPluss is among the very few in the world manufacturing Phase Change Materials and the only company in India do so.

PCMs are special thermal energy storage materials being extensively used as a reliable source of energy to maintain required temperatures in various industries. They use chemical bonds to store and release heat. The thermal energy transfer occurs when a material changes from a solid to a liquid or from a liquid to a solid. This is called a change in state or “phase.” PCMs can be used in a wide range of application wherever there is a need to store thermal energy to reduce energy cost, ensure temperature control when power is unavailable or improve overall efficiency of the system.

For countries like India, where there is a power shortage, PCMs can help save on diesel costs. Energy cold/hot can be stored when electricity is available and utilised during power outages.

PCM is stil l in the nascent stage in the country. There has been some traditional solutions like glycol and gel pack for storing thermal energy for the cold chain and pharmaceutical sectors. PCM’s are replacements for such products and also finds varied applications in many sectors. There has been a lack of awareness regarding the advantages one gets by

using PCM instead of the traditional solutions. However, industry response has been positive until now. They are surprised by the performance of PCM’s and many companies are testing it as of now. PCM’s are bound to take over the market in the next 2-3 years.

Advantages for Solar Industry One of the biggest challenges has been storing solar energy for use after sunset. If the end application is to use the energy for heat, it makes absolutely no sense to convert solar energy into electricity and store in a battery as DC. Then convert it back to AC and run a heater to produce heat. You loose on the efficiency with so many conversions. Instead, PCMs allow you to store heat in the form of heat.All you need is a right temperature PCM – say between 60 to 1000 or even higher, store the heat and use it to heat your rooms at night or heat your water or for your process – say extend the solar drying from day time to night time and improve productivity for the farmers.

Hence, PCMs, if applied well, can be a boon for the solar industry.

Tessol tie-up TESSOL is a Technology-based startup. Pluss has tied up with Tessol to provide HVAC solutions using PCM’s. The systems on offer under this partnership are ideally suited for commercial offices and shopping complexes operational for 10 - 12 hours during the day essentially. These energy storage systems enable the building to generate and store cool energy at night and use when there is a shortage during the day. They will help state electricity boards meet the huge demand – supply gap.

The combination of R&D expertise in materials; polymers offered by PLUSS and the application development team of TESSOL will collectively allow us to roll out products besides the conventional ice storage systems that the country has seen so far. We are enabling storing of the cool energy that is freely available at night for desert regions and warm energy freely available during the day in cold regions of the country.

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