DuPont advances biopolymers

DuPont plans to roll out a polytrimethylene terephthalate (PTT) engineering polymer and a line of Hytrel elastomers made with propanediol instead of butanediol. The new products, to debut next year, will build on the firm's Sorona PTT fiber business and the looming start-up of a 100 million-lb-per-year plant that makes 1,3-propanediol, a PTT feedstock, via fermentation. The company says the PTT engineering polymer has properties similar to those of polybutylene terephthalate. The Hytrel product, DuPont says, offers better elastic recovery and temperature range than conventional butanediol-based Hytrel. The DuPont Tate & Lyle Bio Products joint venture plans to open the propanediol plant in Loudon, Tenn., later this year.