10 YEARS OF TRITAN: BECOMING SOMETHING MORE
Eastman celebrates Tritan’s decade of market disruption with new IoT applications at Orlando NPE 2018
Global specialty plastics provider Eastman announced groundbreaking product developments marking the milestone 10th anniversary of Eastman Tritan™ copolyester, a clear, tough, chemical-resistant polymer found in products made by companies such as Newell, Nalgene, CamelBak and NuGlass. Eastman showcased its wide portfolio of applications and highlighted its latest IoT applications.
“Tritan has been a fantastic material for us,” said Burt Capel, Eastman vice president and general manager of Specialty Plastics. “It’s one of the fastest growing engineering materials of all time, especially in the last 50 years. And what’s great about Tritan is the market has been pulling it as much as we’ve been pushing it. So we’ve grown tremendously in some of the early wins in the food contact spaces, and it continues to proliferate in appliances… medical, in areas of building construction and graphic art, so it continues to grow and continues to evolve.”
Burt Capel, Vice President & General Manager, Eastman Specialty Plastics
Eastman Tritan™ copolyester offers high performance properties such as clarity, colorability, durability, ease of processing, and heat and chemical resistance. Over the past decade, Tritan™ has become a commonly found material in applications across markets from housewares, small appliances, medical packaging and devices to reusable water bottles, beverageware and wearable electronics.
“We are still growing with our flagship platform in Tritan materials but also see breadth of our copolyester and specialty polyesters continue to grow,” Capel added. “We have new medical grades that have flame retardancy, new polyesters going into 3D printing, and of course we are continuing to grow our footprint with new potential applications in our new Treva, cellulose ester materials.”
One of the macro trends Eastman is tapping into is the emergence of connectivity in the plastics industry, and the need for products to do more than what they were originally designed to do. This has given Eastman’s Tritan™ copolyester a perfect opportunity to set itself apart as a leading material used in several IoT applications in the agriculture, fitness and medical markets due to its inherent properties.
“We’re really not interested in being just some kind of plastic,” Capel said. “We’re interested in trying to be the right kind of plastic for the applications we participate in.” Capel said they see IoT as another way in which customers and companies can differentiate themselves.
“What IOT really means to us, it means the opportunity to think differently,” Capel added. “Whether it’s devices on your wrist, devices in your home or devices out in a field for a farm, every device needs to figure out how to do more. And that’s the connectivity and capabilities that we can bring with some of our materials. Not because we’re going be the software - we’re going to be the housing and the hardware that is going to allow you to do things in different ways.”
Capel discussed three distinct areas in which the Eastman team has driven innovation within IoT applications, helping its clients overcome hurdles by creating unique solutions that met the expectations and needs of today’s hyper-connected customers.
• Agriculture
Recent innovations in smart technology allowed Tritan™ to position itself as the right plastic for applications in digital agriculture. With Arable Labs, Eastman created a solar-powered, chemically-resistant smart device using Tritan™, which allows farmers to monitor crops and weather.
The disc-like smart device has leads that go into the ground. This enables the farmer to monitor nutrition and the moisture content of the soil, and in turn, maximize their yields while simultaneously optimizing their costs.
• Fitness
Another area in which Tritan™ is leading within IoT applications is hydration, due to its superior strength and moldability. With the growing trend of step-counting, calorie-tracking and healthy living, Eastman found the opportunity to create a product that would easily integrate into a customer’s life and help them maintain a healthy lifestyle.
Hidrate Spark is a smart water bottle that tracks water intake and integrates with fitness trackers such as Fitbit, Apple Watch and Google Fit. It has an interior sensor that records daily water intake and provides customized hydration goals. Besides tracking one’s water consumption, Hidrate Spark uses a light to signal you when it’s time to get hydrated so that you can meet your hydration goals and stay healthy.
• Medicine
In the medical housings arena, Eastman has developed a product called MXF. This is a material that is not clear but are extremely tough, durable and flame retarded, in addition to being chemically-resistant, which makes it ideal for medical housing applications given that it maintains 90% of its impact properties when repeatedly exposed to the cleaners often used in the hospitals.
“The way it can take the harshest, most costing disinfectants in constant contact without crazing or cracking, is really remarkable and really recognized in the medical industry,” Capel said. “MXF allows for the harshest disinfectants to be used without eating away at our plastic, Capel said. “So that the product looks and actually performs as it was day one, for years.”
It is clear Eastman Tritan™ is becoming something more. And with its wide portfolio of copolyesters and specialty polyesters, Eastman will continue to expand applications and, innovate -- a word Capel used to describe Eastman.
“We are working with customers in some of the most demanding markets, with pressure to meet the most stringent regulations, to evolve or vanish, innovate and disrupt,” Capel said. “Right there in the middle of the most complex, difficult and intriguing applications, that’s where the Eastman teams get excited.”
Capel also announced that Eastman has finalized the expansion for its newest Tritan line, which is now operational, and has also added a new expansion in its Kingsport, Tenn. facility of up to 25 percent of the PETG and PCTG capacity.
For more information, please visit www.eastman.com.
