Material choice matters in circular-economy strategies for 3D printed plastics. This interview with Evonik examines how life cycle assessment (LCA) informs its INFINAM® eCO range and what is needed to interpret environmental comparisons.
Evonik supplies materials for several additive manufacturing processes. The goals and statements in this interview reflect the strategy it presented in 2024.
According to its stated sustainability goals, the company intends to generate more than 50% of sales by 2030 from its Next Generation Solutions, which the company describes as, “products and solutions that have a positive sustainability profile clearly above the market reference level.”
In this interview, Evonik presents life cycle assessment as a tool for measuring the sustainability of its products and services and tracking progress towards its goals for 2030.
LCA follows a structured framework, including ISO 14040, to assess environmental impacts. Results depend on scope, functional unit, data and assumptions. Comparisons need to state these elements; mentioning an LCA alone does not establish overall environmental superiority.
« An LCA is a methodical analysis that quantifies the environmental impact of a product or service, » says Florian Hermes, director of sustainability at Evonik’s High Performance Polymers business line. « All of our LCAs are based on ISO 14040 and 14044. Additional guidelines come from ISO 14067, the Together for Sustainability’s (TfS) “Product Carbon Footprint Guideline for the Chemical Industry,” the Product Environmental Footprint’s (PEF) “Greenhouse Gas Protocol,” guidelines from the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD), and further relevant regulations and widely accepted standards. »
Editorial clarification: Product Environmental Footprint and the Greenhouse Gas Protocol are distinct frameworks. A carbon footprint alone does not cover every impact category in an LCA.
At Evonik, LCAs help to make informed decisions. It’s as simple as that. The company’s sustainability choices come from a full LCA that involves carbon footprint and other impact categories such as water usage – the ultimate goal being to show the environmental impact of its products and services.
According to Evonik, fact-based comparisons should examine materials, manufacturing processes and the effects of the application. The company gives the example of a strong, lightweight material for aircraft: emissions from its production should be considered alongside potential fuel and emissions savings during use.
While some customers would be willing to pay a premium for sustainable products, the trap they might fall into is to buy a product that is labeled « circular or sustainable » without any certified metrics to justify this circularity. For this reason, Evonik is committed to highlighting the key metrics that support its worldwide sustainability transformation. Among many others, these metrics include indicators regarding a product’s impact on land-use, blue water consumption, and water scarcity.
How does this support a more sustainable development and commercialization of the company’s INFINAM product line?
INFINAM groups Evonik’s AM materials. The eCO PA12 range was announced in October 2023 as part of its “RHILOSOPHY” strategy.
« INFINAM eCO is a low-footprint polyamide 12 based on a mass-balanced feedstock of used cooking oil. It excels in terms of carbon footprint but also in terms of water and land usage, thanks to the use of this waste-based [feedstock]. At the same time, it excels in performance which is identical to classical INFINAM grades. The eCO designation stands for the use of renewable or circular feedstocks via the mass balance approach, to further reduce CO2 emissions, » says Dominic Stoerkle, head of the Additive Manufacturing & Material Solutions product line at Evonik.
As a reminder, this RHILOSOPHY is based on four cornerstones: reduce, reuse, recycle and renewable or circular raw materials.
Mass balance allocates certified feedstock quantities to outputs through verified bookkeeping. It does not mean each bag physically contains the allocated proportion of waste-cooking-oil feedstock. Evonik presents reuse of unfused powder as a separate measure.
“Currently, the market standard among printing powders for SLS (Selective Laser Sintering) is that once a 3D printing job has finished, only about 80% of the powder remaining in the chamber can be reused. This means about 20% of that powder is not fit for use and is wasted. Our INFINAM powders for 3D printing have the market’s best reusability rate at 100%. This maximizes the EFFICIENCY potential for 3D printing manufacturers, as less remaining powder is rendered into wasted raw material. EFFICIENCY means less waste and less waste means maximizing the potential of any given raw material,” says Arnim Kraatz, Director Powder Bed Fusion at Evonik.
The quoted “100%” concerns recoverable powder, not a cycle requiring no virgin material. Evonik’s 2023 technical release specifies a 70% used / 30% virgin blend over several cycles. Results should be checked for the grade, machine and application; a market-wide superiority claim is not independently established here.
In its 2023 announcement, Evonik claims 74% lower CO2 emissions than its own castor-oil-based INFINAM® Terra development grade. That figure does not apply to every polyamide or automatically to the finished part. « It offers a considerably lower carbon footprint but as it’s chemically identical to INFINAM PA12 powders, it retains 100% of the performance benefits of these powders. In other words, there is no change in performance, » says Arnim Kraatz.
The interview highlights carbon, water and land-use impacts. Potential benefits during use, sometimes described as a “handprint”, need separate evidence from production footprints. They do not automatically offset those footprints.
This content has been produced in collaboration with Evonik. All images: courtesy of Evonik. It was initially published in the July/August edition of 3D ADEPT Mag.
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