Over past months, many in-house workflows and development processes have slowed down and also changed. Nevertheless, time has not stood still, also not in injection molding technology. The debate and development have been shaped by two themes: digitalization and the circular economy. Below are some examples of developments and projects that underpin this trend.

Two displays are seamlessly integrated into the continuously 3D-formed instrument panel

Innovative Injection Molding in Times of Pandemic

Spritzgießen

Kunststoffverarbeitung: Verfahren

Schaumspritzgießen

Künstliche Intelligenz für die Qualitätssicherung

Industrie 4.0

Industrie 4.0 für die Qualitätssicherung

Steuern, Regeln

Software

Mehrkomponenten-Spritzgießen

Folientechnik (IMD, IML, FIM, u.a.)

Digitale Transformation

Wirtschaft

Innovationen und neue Technologie

Spritzgießwerkzeuge

Kunststoffverarbeitung: Maschinen und Komponenten

Werkzeuge für die Kunststoffverarbeitung

Biokunststoffe

Kunststoff Werkstoffe

Spritzgieß-Sonderverfahren

Nachhaltigkeit

Umweltmanagement

Spritzgießsimulation

Simulation

Schnecken und Plastifiziersysteme

Spritzgießmaschinen

Industrie 4.0 für die Kunststoffverarbeitung

Machine Learning / Künstliche Intelligenz für die spanende Fertigung

Industrie 4.0 für die spanende Fertigung

Kunststoff-Recycling

Kunststoff-Aufbereitung

Lasermarkieren

Oberflächentechnik

Laserbearbeitungen

Inline- / Online-Messsysteme

Qualitätssicherung

Qualitätssicherung Kunststoff

Kreislaufwirtschaft

There Is More beyond the Horizon

Interview with Thorsten Kühmann, Managing Director of Plastics and Rubber Machinery within the VDMA, and Ingemar Bühler, Chief Executive Officer of PlasticsEurope Deutschland.

 Digitalization makes the value chain more transparent, processes can be controlled more easily

“Digitalization Will Make Products Transparent”

Paint bucket or A-pillar finisher? In our thoughts and attribution of value, packaging items and high-tech components often represent opposites. Yet the two can complement one another – when you look at used packaging as a valuable raw material. At the fair, KraussMaffei will be showing the concept for a closed material cycle and is making plastics processing sustainable through this.

First a bucket or another plastic product, then raw material for further processing: the shredded post-industrial material

At the K, KraussMaffei Will Be Showing the Cycle from Product to Upcycling  to a New Product

Messe K-Kunststoffmesse

kunststoffe-international.com

Smart Factory

Energieeffizienz

Laserbeschriftung

Rückverfolgbarkeit, Traceability

Qualitätsmanagement

Handling, Handhabungstechnik

Automatisierungstechnik

Zerkleinerungsmaschinen

Greifer für die Kunststofftechnik

Kunststoff-Rezyklat

Compoundieren

Today Packaging,  Tomorrow Raw Material

In an online survey, representatives of the plastics industry formulated their expectations toward the Plastics Innovation Center 4.0 (PIC 4.0).

Wordcloud generated from the answers to the open question concerning the most important use cases for PIC 4.0

Part 5 of the Series: Practical Demonstrators for the Plastics Innovation Center 4.0

Messdatenerfassung und -verarbeitung

Prozessoptimierung

Prozessmanagement

Machine Learning

Datenanalyse

Focus on the User Benefit

The plastics industry has a variety of materials and technologies available for significantly reducing the ecological footprint of products. There are very few applications for which it is not possible to replace at least a portion of the fossil material with recyclates or bioplastics. Various methods, standards and software tools are available to determine what savings this can achieve.

Determining CO2 Savings from Recycled Materials and Bioplastics

Recycling

Normen / Standards

Recht allgemein / sonst.

Reducing the CO2 Footprint

Statutory recyclate quotas and the specifications of brand-name producers are weighing heavily on the packaging branch these days and turning recyclate availability into a hot issue. Some polymers are simply not available in sufficient amounts. Experts at the 31st Dresden Packaging Conference provided insights into the current situations and explained why the situation could worsen in the future.

Recyclates of many polymer types are hard to get right now.

16:9

Verpackungsmaterial

Logistik

Streifinger, Florian

Hard-to-Find Recylates

Electrical and electronics manufacturers want to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from their products and optimize waste management and recycling for them. This can be achieved, among other ways, by using more sustainable thermoplastics and quality-assured recyclates. A close cooperation between companies to establish material cycles and the recycling-friendly design of equipment are also important.

Driving Sustainability Trends in the Electrical and Electronics Industry with Polymers

Elektronik

Technische Kunststoffe

Thermoplaste

Polycarbonat

Support for a Greener E&E World

A growing number of companies and industrial sectors would like to use recyclates for their products. However, the application is frequently still confronted with considerable difficulties. And the extension of recycling to other fields and sectors also poses new questions. An overview of the current status and associated technical solutions was provided in conference “Forum Plastic Recyclates” at the end of March.

Conference Minutes of “Forum Plastic Recyclates”

Additive

Start into a Second Life for Plastics

IKV develops recyclable packaging solutions with the help of plasma technologies and presents the current state of research at the IKV colloquium in September.

Oberflächenbeschichtung

Holz

Recyclable Barrier Systems for Sustainable Packaging

The Reciturf Project, funded by the Valencian Innovation Agency, is developing new artificial turf recycling methods so this waste does not end up in landfills.

The Reciturf Project is developing new artificial turf recycling methods so this waste does not end up in landfills

Reusing Artificial Turf Waste

A consortium of well-known beverage brand owners has produced sample bottles from food-grade rPET for the first time using a breakthrough enzymatic recycling process.

Polyethylenterephthalat

Global Brands Unveil World’s First Sample PET Bottles

Engel supports the work of environmental organization Plastic Bank in Indonesia. As part of this cooperation, the injection molding machine manufacturer has financed the collection of at least 120 t of plastic waste in order to reclaim the recycling materials.

Recycling materials instead of waste. In cooperation with Plastic Bank, Engel is supporting the collection and processing of at least 120 t of plastic waste in Indonesia

Engel Cooperates with Plastic Bank

The Plastics Recycling Show Europe (PRSE), the pan-European exhibition and conference dedicated to plastics recycling, returns to the RAI Amsterdam, The Netherlands on 4–5 November 2021.

“PRSE has cemented its position as the focal point for plastics recycling in Europe,” said Matt Barber, PRSE Event Director at Crain Communications. “By moving to Hall 12 at the RAI this year, we have been able to accommodate demand for more exhibition space from more exhibitors and expand the floorplan to over 8000 m2.”

Verbände, Institutionen, Messen

Dienstleistungen

Plastics Recycling Show Europe Returns to Amsterdam

From May 3 to 6, 2022, Milan will host Greenplast for the first time, an exhibition/convention dedicated to materials, technologies, and converting processes for plastics and rubber, with a strong emphasis on environmental sustainability, recovery and recycling of materials, and energy efficiency.

Fabrizio Vanzan, Samantha Stefanini, Dario Previero (Amaplast President), Eleonora Iula, Mario Maggiani (CEO Promaplast) (from left) are looking forward to the new exhibition Greenplast

Kunststoffverarbeitung

Lohnfertigung

Greenplast – A New Exhibition in Italy

PET flakes can now be processed without pre-drying into pellets using Coperion ZSK twin screw extruders and reprocessed back into bottles again with the quality of virgin material.

Coperion ZSK twin screw extruders provide very good devolatilization with short residence times in the process section as well as very high dispersion, contributing significantly to high end product quality

Materialhandling

FDA-Compliant Recycling of PET Flakes

The IKV is researching digital solutions for better description and classification of recyclates. The aim is to increase the actual recyclate use rates. Results will be presented at the IKV colloquium in September.

The Institute for Plastics Processing (IKV) in Industry and Craft at RWTH Aachen University is researching digital solutions for better description and classification of recyclates. The aim is to increase the actual recyclate use rates. Results will be presented at the IKV colloquium in September.

As part of the European Green Deal, an international shift to a circular economy is being promoted at EU level. This involves, among other things, setting the course to reduce environmental damage caused by emissions, making sustainable use of finite resources, and enabling the recycling and reuse of as many materials as possible. The recycling-friendly optimization of products and processes – also in plastics processing – is essential for achieving these European targets. The complex and varying composition of recyclate material, in combination with the lack of evaluation standards, is creating obstacles against its industrial use. In addition, regulatory restrictions can frequently not be fulfilled. Finally, there is a lack of information along the process chain of plastics products that is needed to guarantee ecological and sustainable optimization.

The level of contamination and, in this connection, also the product design has a key influence on the recyclate properties. Packaging often consists of several components, for example from different plastics as well as additives, printing inks or adhesives. Apart from that, recyclate material has experienced various types of stress during its utilization and processing. This leads to different levels and types of damage to the material, and affects the properties of the products in later use. The uncertainty about the origin and composition of the recycled plastic material also makes it difficult to define its characteristics and to determine the data that are important for meeting the regulatory requirements and for its processing. IKV has, since the 1980s, been working on solutions to numerous questions in this area of research.

Digital Approaches Promote Closed Loop Recycling

Especially in combination with digital innovations, such research results have the potential to solve these challenges, and are regarded as a driving force when it comes to raising recycling quotas and promoting the circular economy in the field of plastics. In this connection, data platforms are of elementary importance for increasing the general exchange of information, for tracking material flows and for documenting sustainability data on raw materials and products. By exchanging the collected sustainability data, it is possible to document the effects exerted by the design and the process, to draw up transparent and accurate life cycle assessments, and to align the recycling of plastic waste. The development and implementation of such approaches – aimed at increasing the real recyclate application quotas – requires the involvement of all players in the plastics industry.

IKV is pursuing a holistic approach to identify digital solutions for the improved use of recyclate. In the PlasticBOND research project, together with a broadly based industry consortium, prototype concepts are being developed that consider the product and process properties at every stage of the life cycle, and make the information available as a set of data in line with the material passport introduced by the Industry 4.0 platform. Applications in which the digital passport can provide a benefit are, in addition to more efficient processing, also the holistic optimization of the ecological sustainability (e.g. the CO2 footprint of packaging) or the compliance with the Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR). Here, IKV makes use in particular of the experience acquired in the R-Cycle project with traceable plastic products.

Alongside this, a study is also being carried out of the effects on processing of using varying recyclate qualities and varying recyclate contents, as well as their influence on the respective process control. The focus of the project is less on raising the individual recyclate quality or optimizing the actual processing, but more on improving the standards for recyclate. This should then make it possible, taking into account the complexity of the reprocessing, to make specific use of recyclate according to the classification, and thus turn the „circular economy“ from a political goal to a practicable, everyday technology.

Circular Economy at the 31st International Colloquium Plastics Technology

Circular economy will be the topic of Session 2: Recyclable barrier systems for sustainable products and Session 5: Control of material flows in packaging recycling, each with a keynote speech from industry and two scientific presentations by IKV.

During IKV 360° Research Live, the scientific staff will demonstrate the potential circular economy at various stations:

<ul><li>Packaging recycling</li><li>Recycling of FRP molding compounds</li><li>Characterisation of recyclates</li><li>PE quantification in recyclates</li><li>Migration barrier for recyclates</li></ul>

Institut für Kunststoffverarbeitung (IKV) in Industrie und Handwerk an der RWTH Aachen

https://www.ikv-aachen.de

PlasticBOND: Schematic illustration of the platform design to be developed.

The R-Cycle initiative aims to increase the proportion of plastic packaging that is recycled. Renowned companies in the plastics industry are behind the initiative.

2022-07-13 IKV-Kolloquium Kreislaufwirtschaft

International Colloquium Plastics Technology

Professional exchange, new impulses and inspiring encounters – this is what the <a href="https://www.ikv-aachen.de/en/events/colloquium/" target="_blank">International Colloquium Plastics Technology</a> has stood for since 1950. From 7 – 8 September 2022, IKV invites to Aachen for the 31st time.

<a href="https://en.kunststoffe.de/a/news/assistance-systems-facilitate-process-co-2756776" target="_blank">Read here what you can expect in Aachen this fall.</a>