We had a pleasant interview with Mr. Ümit Makal, R&D Manager of Ravago Petrochemicals. Mr. Makal shared with us valuable information about the company’s activities in the TPU sector they serve.
Could you please tell our readers about yourself and your professional resume?
I have started working in the field of polyurethanes during my undergraduate years. After completing my B.S degree in chemistry at Koc University, I pursued Ph.D. in polymer
science and engineering at Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA.
Upon earning my doctorate degree I started to work in the Estane TPU R&D Department at The Lubrizol Corporation in OH, USA, the largest TPU supplier in the world. After spending about 15 years at Lubrizol, I have decided to go back home and started working as R&D Manager for Ravago’s Ravathane® TPU business unit.
In my so far academic and business career, I published 28 papers, 10 of which are in the peer-reviewed journals. I am holding 25 EU and US patents.
Could you please share your company’s founding story and development process with our readers?
Raf Van Gorp founded Ravago in 1961 when he had the opportunity to buy the premises of a dynamite company in Arendonk, Belgium. This enabled him to work out the luminous idea he had: recycling production waste from the plastics producing petrochemical companies.
From there, Ravago grew into a comprehensive service provider to the petrochemical industry, constantly pushing the boundaries of plastics applications and bringing the (re)
use of plastics to a next level, with sustainability continuously on our mind.
Over the years, the ambition of global expansion and market leadership in polymer and chemical distribution, recycling and compounding, and building materials, became a reality.
Ravago started manufacturing in Türkiye in 2001.
Since then constantly investing in plastics industry in the country either by acquiring new business or founding production sites. In 2013, Ravago combined all established and
purchased local plastic raw material production companies under the roof of Ravago Petrokimya Üretim A.Ş (RPU).
RPU is now one of the leading and most important plastic manufacturers in Türkiye and the region, operating in two production facilities (Taysad, Kocaeli and Aliağa, İzmir) with a total area of 255,000 m2. The first production activity of RPU started with manufacture of Thermoplastic Elastomer (TPE) in Gebze, Kocaeli in 2001.
It was followed by establishment of Engineering Plastics Business Unit in 2004. In 2019, this two product lines were moved to Izmir Aliağa facility next to our EPS business unit. I have to underline the fact that these materials are now produced using Industry 4.0 standards and guidelines.
Polymerization and chemical systems activities are RPU’s next area of expansion. In 2011 the Thermoplastic Polyurethane (TPU) Business unit was established and became Türkiye’s first and the only TPU producer.
After the acquisition of Polyurethane Systems Business unit in 2014, both businesses merged within our Taysad Kocaeli production facility. The merger not only expanded our product range but increased our efficiency and presence in the PU sector.
The global purchase of Expandable Polystyrene (EPS) Business Unit took place in 2012. Our EPS production facility locate next to EP and TPE compounding plant in Aliaga /İzmir is Türkiye’s first and largest as well as Europe’s top three EPS production site.
The future of Ravago will be determined by the inherent drive of insiders: group members will continue to integrate and converge, the organization as a whole will continue to grow both internally (by attracting young talent) and externally (by being receptive for further expansion) and businesses will continue to adapt in line with rapidly changing environments.
Could you please tell us about your production activities in the Thermoplastic Polyurethane sector and the product groups you offer to the sector?
We are the first and the only Thermoplastic Polyurethane (TPU) producer in Türkiye. We manufacture TPU using the reactive extrusion process which proudly makes us the unique TPU supplier in our country.
We are also the first and the only TPU production site in the whole Ravago Corporation globally, in other words we are exporting our in-house developed know-how to Ravago Corporate. TPU is one of the most valuable products that Ravago produces and sells under the trade name Ravathane® TPU.
TPU is a thermoplastic elastomer with excellent materials properties such as high wear resistance, elasticity, outstanding abrasion resistance, and very high mechanicals in addition to excellent chemical resistance. TPU can be used for all kinds of processes including injection molding, extrusion, blow molding, solvent cast, and lamination.
Urethane chemistry is very versatile, by playing only with the initial monomer types and/or their overall loadings extremely different TPU formulations with different final properties are possible. We are basically taking advantage of this chemistry. We designed our own process all the way from QC’ing the raw materials up to drying silos.
Everything we do is our own technology and know-how. This enables us to have a very
broad portfolio of grades serving many different markets and applications such as shoes soles, pneumatic hose and tubing, a wide variety of injection and extrusion applications, automotive, conveyor belts, textile lamination, solvent cast processes, adhesives, profile
extrusion, wire and cable, compounding, film applications, and many more.
Compared to our competition our portfolio may be seen limited, but we are expanding our product offerings everyday which enables us to penetrate to new markets and applications. I can truly say that all of our new formulations become a brand new commercial product at the end of the day.
Having such technical capability makes us an irreplaceable development partner for our customers. In fact, we are developing specialized formulations with our customers (we call
them development partners) for them to serve better to their customers.
Could you please tell us about the R&D studies that you have done to develop your products and the opportunities you have allocated for these studies?
First of all, our Ravago R&D center plays a major role in the R&D studies of both our TPU as well as other RME business units. At our R&D center, we can perform almost any test and analysis we want.
In addition, if necessary, we can send our samples to external laboratories or universities
and have them analyzed. At Ravago we believe our most valuable asset is our people. The development of our employees is very important.
We organize polymer material and polymer process training sessions within the company. In particular, we ensure that our R&D engineers become well equipped academically and industrially. In addition, we always support our engineers to participate to technical conferences, seminars, and technology fairs both at home and abroad.
Do you have an innovative product that you have recently presented to the Thermoplastic Polyurethane (TPU) sector?
First of all, I would like to point out that the chemistry of TPU is so diverse and extensive that by changing the type and loading of the monomers used in the formulation, a final product with very different performance and properties can be obtained.
As Ravago, we manufacture some of our monomers ourselves adding another degree
of freedom to our process. In this sense, all of our formulations and processes are unique to us and it is a technology developed only by us in Türkiye. Of course, we have a technology road map. We are on track towards achieving our challenging goals which we assigned to ourselves.
Just to give you a few examples of the innovative products we have recently developed; TPUs with improved non-flammable properties to be used in the production of electrical vehicle charging cable insulations, adhesive grades with different softening profiles for textile applications, new TPU formulations soluble in challenging solvents such as DMF, MEK or acetone, breathable and water-resistant grades, matte finish TPU grades for film and sheet applications, laser printable grades for animal ear tagging applications, special TPU formulations with tunable electrostatic dissipative (ESD) properties for demanding castor wheel and belting applications, PVC compatible TPU formulations, radiopaque TPU materials used in bio-imaging, TPU elastomers with high creep resistance used in conveyor applications.
What points do you pay attention to in order to protect the quality while producing?
We use the best raw materials in our processes in order to continuously produce high quality materials, we monitor our process conditions closely and try to minimize variations.
In this context, we maintain our equipment with great sensitivity and make continuous improvements.
On the other hand, in our quality control unit, which is one of the most critical points of our business, we conduct continuous analyzes during production and direct the production and act in line with the goal of offering the best product to our customers.
Could you please tell us about your export activities on the basis of Thermoplastic Polyurethane (TPU) product groups?
Ravago owns the World’s largest polymer distribution channels. Thru these channels we are exporting our materials to any market or customer practically anywhere in the globe.
We export more than half of our TPU products. We work very closely with such distribution channels to make them aware of our products, train them about our product portfolio and technology, and provide them the highest technical support when they go before their customers.
In fact, we spend quite a bit of our time travelling and visiting our current and prospective customers in EU, North America, North Africa, and elsewhere. This way we provide service and solutions to our customers’ needs. In addition we constantly do market search and identify unmet needs in the market and develop technologies to address them.
Ravathane® TPU team is very flexible and highly motivated making us to react very fast and efficiently which is extremely appreciated by our customers as well as our distribution channels.
In order to introduce Ravathane® TPU in the market, and make it to be a broadly accepted product; the close follow up and participation of the exhibitions related with the TPU market followed by necessary actions to be taken afterwards is also very crucial.
In this regard, we would like announce that our precise work to introduce the newest member of Ravago family, Ravathane® & Ravasafe ® TPU diligently continues.
How do you evaluate the development of the Thermoplastic Polyurethane (TPU) sector in Turkey?
TPU is a specialty elastomer with high value-added properties. First of all, we are very proud of being able to manufacture such elastomers both in Türkiye and in Ravago
Global.
TPU is an elastomer with a very wide applications area. It is used in many different and various markets, from shoe soles to the fireproof cable sheathing. It is used in highly technical and critical applications. We strongly believe, in Türkiye there is a driving force to make specialized, highly technical, and value-added products to be competitive in the world.
Here we come into the picture as we develop both technology and new products for such
high end markets with our business partners to contribute development of know-how in our country. This helps our customers to be competitive in their markets which would move our plastics industry from using commodity materials to specialty elastomers for high end and valueadded applications.
In that sense, we do not see ourselves a simple material supplier but a solution provider. With all these in mind we are highly motivated and working very hard to provide our customers the best service. Digitalization has caused changes in the industry.
How do you benefit from digitalization in your own processes?
We always target to bring our digitalization level to the next step and go to the extra mile. We have all the support from our upper management to implement all the necessary changes and modifications to our existing equipment and new investments in our facility.
This is an ongoing process, we are constantly working to make our processes towards being fully automated and as less people dependent as possible. We highly believe these
efforts will end up much improved and higher quality and efficiency.
Currently, we carry out processes such as control and monitoring of process parameters performing predictive maintenance with online vibration measurement from certain equipment, and analysis and monitoring of energy consumptions in digital environment.
We are nowhere close to where we want to be but we are for sure on the right path and continue to progress towards our goals.
