The sale of Polyblend (Bad Sobernheim / Germany; www.polyblend.de) to the former partner and majority shareholder Total (Paris / France; www.total.com) will mark the start of a move to fresh pastures for Polymer-Group (Bad Sobernheim; www.polymer-gruppe.de). After the French company became the sole Polyblend shareholder through the October 2020 acquisition of the remaining 32%, Polymer-Group plans, with immediate effect, to focus more on the field of biopolymers.

At the heart of the business will be the newly established company SoBiCo (Bad Sobernheim; www.polymer-gruppe.de), in which all the biopolymer activities is to be combined. In the next few years, the findings from a multiple-year research project with the Fraunhofer Institute for Applied Polymer Research in Potsdam is expected to help build new business operations.

The biopolymers research division in Potsdam, headed by Johannes Ganster, has together with Polymer-Group developed innovative PLA-based copolymers with film-like properties that are to be produced in reactive compounding.

Polymer-Group spun off its plastics compounds business division in summer 2009 into the then newly founded Polyblend (see Plasteurope.com of 10.09.2009). At the beginning of November 2014, Total acquired a majority stake of 68% in Polyblend (see Plasteurope.com of 01.12.2014).