The rising demand for sustainable materials is driven by eco-conscious consumers and companies. However, the key to transitioning from innovation to mass adoption lies in scalability. Scaling sustainable materials is not just about producing more—it’s about creating accessible, cost-effective solutions that reach a broader audience. Achieving scale often brings many challenges, including navigating complex supply chains, investing in new, specialized facilities, and ensuring that products consistently meet customer expectations.
Challenges in Scaling Sustainable Materials
For most brands, their supply chain is outsourced to overseas factories, far from their design and engineering hubs, making scalability a significant challenge. Different industries have manufacturing hubs in different parts of the world. To provide materials efficiently, many next-gen material companies must build new factories to produce their materials near the brand’s existing supply chain. If the material company plans to supply materials to different industries, it may need to consider building factories in different parts of the world.
However, this approach demands substantial upfront investment. New production facilities require high-cost investments in new equipment and additional time investment to train personnel in these new processes. Replicating the success of lab innovations at a production scale overseas also takes significant time investment. These barriers often slow the transition of promising innovations from their prototype to being fully scaled.
Rheom Material’s Innovative Approach
Rheom Materials sidesteps these scalability challenges by offering sustainable material solutions that are already compatible with existing manufacturing infrastructure—extrusion technology. Instead of requiring costly new machinery, Rheom’s biobased formulations slot into existing supply chains globally. This approach decreases the time and investment needed for scaling and allows Rheom to take advantage of the industry’s existing expertise and versatility.
Rheom’s Collaboration with Bixby International
Rheom recently announced Bixby International as a thermoplastic extrusion partner to collaborate on scaling Shorai, Rheom’s biobased leather alternative. Bixby has been working with Rheom at each stage beyond the lab scale, first starting with small volumes and now growing to supply for the automotive industry.
When selecting a partner for scaling, Rheom prioritized a company that shared its dedication to innovation, sustainability, and excellence. Bixby International embodies these values through its innovative thermoplastic extrusion products and uncompromising dedication to quality. By collaborating with Bixby, Rheom also gains access to Bixby’s extensive expertise in the plastics industry. This partnership ensures that Rheom’s biobased formulations are not only technically viable but ready for wide-reaching adoption.
Going forward, Rheom will continue the initial development of their biobased formulations and processes in their Houston-based laboratory. There, they continuously test various sustainable raw materials to ensure that the final formulations meet their customer’s product specifications. Once their team of scientists identify a promising formulation, they work in their in-house lab-scale extruder to adjust process variables. They then share the final formulation and processing conditions with their extrusion partner who validates the process on their pilot line. Finally, working with Bixby allows Rheom to adjust surface finishes and apply performance coatings to further customize and perfect their final materials. This is how Rheom and Bixby work together to ensure the process, and final material, meet the customer’s expectations at full-scale production.
Rheom’s Biobased Formulations
The key to scaling biobased materials across a wide range of form factors lies in Rheom’s formulations. Rheom uses fermentation products, biomass derivatives, minerals, and clays in their materials, ensuring their solutions have the highest biobased content possible. These ingredients are specifically chosen to ensure the materials are sustainable and safe while meeting the customer’s performance expectations.
Rheom’s materials also offer remarkable versatility. Their first product, Shorai, is a biobased leather alternative extruded into continuous sheets. Customers can customize these sheets to fit their needs by adjusting the color, texture, backing, and soon, the coating. Rheom also offers Benree, a biopolymer resin compatible with injection molding technologies, Benree supports various form factors such as sheets, films, and injection molded parts. The formulations can achieve diverse physical properties such as varying hardness and strength, opening the door to applications across multiple industries.
The co-development partnership between Rheom and Bixby is initially focused on scaling Shorai, but Rheom is also exploring partnership opportunities to scale the production of their biopolymer resin, Benree, as well.
Bridging Sustainability and Accessibility
By combining Rheom’s promising biobased formulations with the versatility of extrusion technology, Rheom is pioneering an accessible solution to sustainable materials. Rheom’s formulations offer a blueprint for scaling sustainable materials without overhauling existing processes. This approach not only reduces costs and quickens timelines but also accelerates the adoption of eco-friendly materials across multiple industries. Rheom’s biobased formulations, paired with collaborative opportunities like the one with Bixby, demonstrate how innovation and scalability can go hand in hand.
Ready to Embrace Sustainable Materials?
Discover how Rheom Materials can help your business easily transition to biobased solutions today with Shorai and Benree. Contact us below to learn more about our products and collaboration opportunities. Change your impact, not your life – with Rheom Materials.
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