Siemens and BASF recently announced a new partnership to debut Sirius 3RV2, a circuit breaker with components made of biomass balance method (BMB) plastics, which is used in factories and buildings to protect machines or cables in the event of faults such as short circuits and to prevent fires.
Siemens, for its part, says that the Sirius 3RV2 circuit breaker is made of two main materials, Ultramid BMB and Ultradur BMB from BASF. Both BMB materials replace fossil feedstocks with biomethane from agricultural waste through a mass balance approach. Replacing fossil feedstock with this biobased material in the cracker can reduce the product's carbon footprint by up to 50 percent compared to conventional materials, while at the same time reducing emissions by about 270 tons of carbon dioxide equivalent per year.
Biomethane, which is typically produced through an anaerobic digestion process from decaying organic matter such as wastewater treatment sludge, food waste, animal manure, landfill gas, dead trees, and municipal solid waste, is a renewable natural gas that is a low-carbon alternative to natural gas due to its renewable, carbon-neutral properties.
Ultradur BMB is a BASF material based on polybutylene terephthalate (PBT), which is ideal for high-quality, heavy-duty parts for the electrical and electronics industry because of the material's high strength and low water absorption properties. BASF's Ultramid grades, on the other hand, are molding compounds based on PA6, PA66 and various co-polyamides with high mechanical strength, stiffness and thermal stability.
The Sirius 3RV2 circuit breaker is not BASF's first product to utilize balanced production from biomass. Back in 2018, BASF already launched products based on renewable feedstock for the production of methanol under this method, which utilizes second-generation renewable feedstocks in place of fossil feedstocks and uses waste and residual materials. Recently, BASF also launched new BMB ecoflex grades, the biomass balancing antioxidants Irganox 1010 BMBcert and Irganox 1076 BMBcert.
