Premium biobased materials
Parana's high-performance biobased polymers:to minimise carbon emissions and fossil plastic waste,to meet needs no drop-in can address.To build a circular, low-carbon future.
“If we don't take the plastics transition seriously, in 25 to 30 years - when plastic production is expected to have tripled - a third of our total CO2 budget will be spent on plastics. […] One of the easiest transitions is that of plastics, because the technology already exists, but the transition for plastics has not even really started yet.”
Gert-Jan Gruter, University of Amsterdam, 18 August 2025 →So we started.
01
Commercially available biobased monomers: isosorbide and bio-MEG.
02
Proprietary high-molecular-weight synthesis. Unique technology to incorporate unreactive secondary diols such as isosorbide.
03
Existing polyester partners toll-manufacture to spec. Asset-light by design.
04
Grades for luxury packaging, barrier films and engineering parts.
Where that stands today
Superior stiffness and glass transition temperature to PET, and amorphous where most biobased plastics are not, which is what gives the transparency and shape stability glass replacement needs. Built for reusable applications.
High barrier, and home-compostable in a couple of months. It also degrades fully in seawater by non-enzymatic hydrolysis, over months to years depending on composition, so the use life can be designed in.
Flexible CHDM raises the impact strength of the PEIT/PEIF chain, and with it the durability. An isosorbide share of 40 to 60% of total diols was found optimal to mimic ABS. Aimed at ABS, PC and Tritan.
A soft polyester family that keeps its flexibility over years of use, blended with PEF and PISA. Aimed at parts that polyolefins hold today. The earliest material in the portfolio.
The polymerisation method the whole platform runs on. It is what makes the difficult isosorbide polyesters possible at all.
WO2018211133Published application PISOX diolsComposition of matter on the diol family behind the high-Tg polyesters.
WO2023012117Published application Chemical upcycling of PET and PEF to PEIT and PEIFTurns existing PET and PEF into PEIT and PEIF, so waste polyester becomes the feedstock rather than the problem.
WO2024094633Published application Traceless chain extenderBuilds molecular weight without a metal catalyst and without leaving a residue in the polymer.
The paper the platform rests on.
2023Open access · UvA Reactive phenolic solvents applied to the synthesis of renewable aromatic polyestersUniversity of Amsterdam.
2024ACS Sust. Chem. & Eng. PISOX copolyesters: bio- and CO2-based marine-degradable high-performance polyestersThe degradability and performance data behind PISOX.
2024Green Chemistry Catalyst free PET and PEF polyesters using a new traceless oxalate chain extenderRoyal Society of Chemistry.
Bing Wang and Gert-Jan Gruter, the original developers of PEF, set up the Avantium corporate R&D unit that became Parana, with one brief: build new performance polyesters rather than copies of old ones. Most of the synthesis and application team came with it.
The management team.
Willem-Jan MeijerChief Executive Officer
Gert-Jan GruterChief Technology Officer & Founder
Laura ThissenChief Business Officer
Robin GruterDirector Finance & Operations1 October 2026
The company spins out of Avantium with fourteen patent families, four of six materials at pilot scale and five joint development agreements in place.
Read the press release → CompanyEarlier
18 August 2025
Interview with Gert-Jan Gruter, University of Amsterdam, on why the plastics transition is one of the easiest to make14 December 2022
“Overcoming the low reactivity of biobased, secondary diols in polyester synthesis” - Nature CommunicationsParana's work is co-financed by LIOF, by the European Union through the Just Transition Fund, and by the Netherlands Enterprise Agency. What the funding is for →
