BASF Opens Biodegradation and Microplastics Center of Excellence

A new center that aims to provide holistic, tailored solutions directly for plastics manufacturing customers supported through scientific studies and consulting, increasing speed-to-market for circular economy products, and advocating on sustainability topics, was officially opened recently by BASF in a ribbon-cutting ceremony. The Biodegradation and Microplastics Center of Excellence at BASF’s site in Wyandotte, Mich., is designed to help customers across North America achieve their circularity and sustainability goals.

As part of the Center of Excellence, the biodegradation laboratory is starting operations at the site working closely with customers to address the important end-of-life performance of their products. Said BASF biopolymers market development manager Jeanette Hanna, “The lab is an important tool which enables us to directly support our customers by accelerating their product development processes with measurable data they would not have had access to in-house. I am proud to collaborate with colleagues across BASF in the development of both the Biodegradation Laboratory and the Center of Excellence which will be able to provide a comprehensive service for our customers.”

The new laboratory will support biodegradable product development primarily in food service and packaging, agriculture, detergents, cleaning, and cosmetics industries. Furthermore, the lab will have the capability to assess rates of disintegration for novel compostable products designed to divert food waste to composting facilities. Closing the loop in the food value chain has a range of positive environmental impacts, from reducing potent methane generated in landfills to creating valuable compost that supports climate resilience by sequestering carbon, increasing water holding capacity for dry soils, preventing erosion, and restoring organic carbon to depleted agricultural soils. The building of the biodegradation laboratory in North America is part of a broader network of similar labs at BASF globally, all of which sharing the same vision.

The Wyandotte site has a broad R&D portfolio including chemicals, materials, formulations, analytics, and piloting. Because of this interdisciplinary setup, the site is poised with technical competencies, collaborative networks and centralized analytics, streamlining the R&D process. When it comes to analytical testing at the Wyandotte labs, information gained will vary from disintegration performance of compostable materials, to biodegradation performance of novel chemistries, to unique insights on microplastics and the behavior of plastics through their life cycles.