Cargill Dow Debuts Renewable 'NatureWorks' Products
September 20, 2001
Chicago, IL (USA) — After 12 years in development Cargill Dow LLC's PLA NatureWorks fibers are on the market. At NeoCon, two divisions of Interface, the carpet and fabrics groups, debuted commercial textile and industrial carpet samples made with the natural-based threads.
Cargill Dow hopes to sell a corn-based fabric for residential and contract applications next year. In November 2001, the company will complete construction on a plant in Nebraska where it will manufacture annually some 300 million pounds of Natureworks PLA — pellets which are toll-manufactured into fibers then sold to mills.
The samples at NeoCon — one for contract upholstery and one for contract flooring — were woven from corn-based fibers, but in about five years with further advancement in technology, Cargill Dow said it will begin to make pellets from biomass — stalks and leaves that farmers leave in their field.
"Annually renewable re-sources like corn are feedstock sources rather than petroleum so production costs are competitive,'' said Cargill Dow communications leader, Michael O'Brien. ''It's a cheaper sugar source so production costs are lower. When our biomass technology is developed, there is potential for the farmer to get a second income off the field.
"Biomass will also eliminate a manufacturing step, which enables us to improve our environmental lifecyle further. Instead of running it through a corn wet mill, we would run it through a dry mill which doesn't use as much energy."
Specifically, wet-mill processing of corn divides corn into five primary elements only one of which is necessary for Cargill Dow's purposes. The dry mill process directly yields the product the company will use.
However, the company has not yet mastered the technology that enables the process, O'Brien said. To that end, the U.S. Department of Energy and the National Institute of Standards and Technology have funded research.
Agreements between Cargill Dow and various partners have been instrumental in creating PLA. Cargill and Dow merged in 1997 and Dow lent its commercial contacts to Cargill's progress. In Japan, the U.S. Grains Council massaged its contacts to help develop the Natureworks market there. It also funded PLA research.O'Brien said that Japanese customers wanted to have supply rights and favored positioning with Cargill Dow.
"We developed marquee accounts," O'Brien said. "Then it became clear there was a demand for this product.''
Interface also backed Cargill Dow by agreeing to buy a fixed amount of the product once the Nebraska plant begins operating.
F&FI
Cargill Dow hopes to sell a corn-based fabric for residential and contract applications next year. In November 2001, the company will complete construction on a plant in Nebraska where it will manufacture annually some 300 million pounds of Natureworks PLA — pellets which are toll-manufactured into fibers then sold to mills.
The samples at NeoCon — one for contract upholstery and one for contract flooring — were woven from corn-based fibers, but in about five years with further advancement in technology, Cargill Dow said it will begin to make pellets from biomass — stalks and leaves that farmers leave in their field.
"Annually renewable re-sources like corn are feedstock sources rather than petroleum so production costs are competitive,'' said Cargill Dow communications leader, Michael O'Brien. ''It's a cheaper sugar source so production costs are lower. When our biomass technology is developed, there is potential for the farmer to get a second income off the field.
"Biomass will also eliminate a manufacturing step, which enables us to improve our environmental lifecyle further. Instead of running it through a corn wet mill, we would run it through a dry mill which doesn't use as much energy."
Specifically, wet-mill processing of corn divides corn into five primary elements only one of which is necessary for Cargill Dow's purposes. The dry mill process directly yields the product the company will use.
However, the company has not yet mastered the technology that enables the process, O'Brien said. To that end, the U.S. Department of Energy and the National Institute of Standards and Technology have funded research.
Agreements between Cargill Dow and various partners have been instrumental in creating PLA. Cargill and Dow merged in 1997 and Dow lent its commercial contacts to Cargill's progress. In Japan, the U.S. Grains Council massaged its contacts to help develop the Natureworks market there. It also funded PLA research.O'Brien said that Japanese customers wanted to have supply rights and favored positioning with Cargill Dow.
"We developed marquee accounts," O'Brien said. "Then it became clear there was a demand for this product.''
Interface also backed Cargill Dow by agreeing to buy a fixed amount of the product once the Nebraska plant begins operating.
F&FI
