The quality of recyclates can be improved very well by means of suitable additives. An overview of the variety of products and their suppliers.

16:9

Overview: Additives for Plastic Recyclates

Stabilisatoren

Kunststoff Werkstoffe

Additive

Kunststoff-Recycling

Kunststoffverarbeitung: Verfahren

Kunststoff-Aufbereitung

Kunststoff-Rezyklat

Vitamins for the Circular Economy

Metal-effect pigments make for attractive designs, but they cause problems with recycling. These can be resolved with a special silver pigment.

Plastic products with a metal-effect finish are attractive. However, the effect pigments make recycling difficult.

Pigmente

Farbstoffe und Pigmente

Recycling

Umweltmanagement

Effektpigmente

A Silver Lining for Recycling

In general, recycled chocolate molds of PC do not meet the food contact requirements. A new recycling strategy is to provide a remedy.

Polycarbonate is frequently used for molds in chocolate production.

Polycarbonat

Thermoplaste

The Chocolate Side of Polycarbonate

The stabilization of used plastics is costly. Online measurement during compounding allows for stabilization directly in production.

Plastic waste often has a very different stabilizer content. This must be precisely determined in the recycling process. 

Determined Online, Recyclate Wins

Automakers want to reduce the carbon footprint of their vehicles. Frank Tönniges from Adient explains what savings are possible in seating.

Frank Tönniges: “Polyurethane has no competition. No material can currently hold a candle to it.”

Streifinger, Florian

Polyurethan-Schaumstoffe (PUR)

Halbzeuge und Zwischenprodukte

Kunststoff-Halbzeuge

Polyurethan

“We Are Saving 50 Percent  on Foam Emissions”

Christian Schiller’s goal is to turn the phrase “plastic waste is recyclable material” into reality. His tool of choice: digitalization.

Digitale Transformation

Wirtschaft

Innovationen und neue Technologie

Start up

Unternehmen und Unternehmer

Ehrhardt, Melanie

“We See Our Work as Basic  Digitalization“

RCS Plastics processes PET flakes into high-quality regranulate for preform and beverage bottle manufacturers. To ensure the required food quality of the recycled material, the company relies on Sikora technology for the quality control of the rPET flakes and pellets.

Cedric Steeg, Employee in Quality Assurance, holds material sample in front of the Puritiy Concept V.

Qualitätssicherung

Polyethylenterephthalat

Check Food Quality of Recyclates

Solvay and Hegen Partner to Bring the First Baby Bottle Made with Recycled Content to the Market.

In the future, Hegen will manufacture baby bottles from mass-balanced PPSU recyclate.

Messe Fakuma

kunststoffe-international.com

Recyclates Now Also for Baby Bottles

Using the latest technological advances in flake sorting helps bridge the gap between supply and demand.

Mixed plastic waste: With about 180.5 million t polyolefins make up the lion‘s share of annual plastics production.

Quantum Leap in Recyclates Quality

The use of TPE materials with recycled content increases the sustainability of vehicles. They are also used more and more in the interior.

The selection of high-quality recyclate enables their use in demanding automotive applications.  

Recyclate Reduce the CO2 Footprint in Seals and Interior Applications

Thermoplastische Elastomere

Kreislaufwirtschaft

Soft, Elastic and Recycled

Automakers have formulated ambitious plans for their vehicles. We discussed this topic with Frank Schumann from Trinseo.

Batterien

Energiespeicherung

Elektromobilität

Mobilität

Lichttechnik

“Nothing Speaks against the Use of Recyclates for Demanding Components”

Crosslinked plastics cannot be recycled mechanically in the conventional way. A consortium has now succeeded in chemically recycling PE-X.

Chemical recycling can also be used to reprocess plastic waste that is difficult to recycle, such as crosslinked polymers.

Polyethylen

Kunststoff-Rohre

Crosslinked But Still Recycled

Material and manufacturing process optimized, CO2 saved: recycled wash cap from Pöppelmann K-Tech closes the loop.

Material and manufacturing process optimized, closed loop: Recycled wash cap for the automotive industry. 

Spritzgießen

Schaumspritzgießen

Sustainable Wash Cap

Neste, Uponor, Wastewise and Borealis enable chemical recycling of hard-to-recycle plastic waste into new high-quality plastic pipes.

The project demonstrates that plastic waste that is difficult to recycle can be turned into high-quality plastic products through chemical recycling.

Technik Trend

kunststoffe.de

Second Life for Discarded PEX Pipes

A Danish manufacturer of wind turbines has found a way to completely recycle the turbines‘ rotor blades.

A new process should make it possible to completely recycle wind turbine rotor blades in the future.

Verbundwerkstoffe / Werkstoffverbunde

New Technology Disassembles Rotor Blades

Recyclates are in demand. Company environmental targets as well as political pressure result in a high interest in their application. However, their quality varies considerably, and is frequently seen as too low. How the quality can be improved was the focus of the fifth edition of the Forum Plastic Recyclates. The answer in many cases was: with additives.

The quality of recyclates is seen as too low. Improvements are possible by using additives, as was shown by the exchanges during the Forum Plastic Recyclates.

Additives, additives, additives – this simple and concise headline summarizes the central theme of this year’s Forum Plastic Recyclates. On the whole, the speakers at the Forum 2023 – which was carried out by the Fraunhofer Institute for Structural Durability and System Reliability (LBF) for the fifth time – were in agreement: Without additives, there will be no noticeable improvements in recyclate quantities and quality in future. Hereby, it was also good to see that many companies view this as an opportunity to develop specialized products. The range of corresponding additives is growing, but obstacles still exist for their increased use.

Towards the end of his lecture, Ton Emans, president of the Plastics Recyclers Europe organization, pointed out one of them. Right at the start of the conference, he gave a good overview of the current situation with plastics recycling in Europe. According to him, some 11.3 million t of installed recycling capacities were available in the European Economic Area (EEA, includes the 27 EU member states plus Liechtenstein, Iceland, and Norway) in 2021. Back in 2012, the figure was slightly more than 2 million t. Consequently, capacities have increased significantly during the past years. However, as Emans pointed out, in order to reach the EU Commission’s target of 10 million t of recyclates per year by 2025, additional high investments are necessary. He added that existing capacities do not correspond to the quantities of recyclate currently produced. In order to achieve the targeted amount, a total of 16 million t of recycling capacities are required. For this, he estimates additional investment needs of EUR 4 billion. Moreover, to achieve the highest possible recycling rates, he sees the need for separated waste collection. Investigations have shown that this would lead to a 13-fold boost in recycling rates.

Emans also supplied data about company sizes of European recyclers. According to him, only 30 % have a processing capacity of more than 40,000 t per year. All the others are medium-sized or small companies. This must be taken into account during expansion planning. To make investments more attractive for the companies, he recommends fixed recyclate quotas for plastic products. These would create interesting business models for recyclers. However, he pointed out that one challenge involves the use of additives in the treatment process. To an increasing extent, recycling companies would be forced to do this, as that is the only way to achieve the quality demanded by customers. But at present, they are opposed to idea, because they have not yet worked with chemicals, and lack corresponding experience.

Emans then focused on the central theme of the conference: additives and their importance for the quality of recyclates. BASF carried out a series of investigations on stabilizer content in treated polyolefins, and what effect this has on the mechanical properties of the recyclates. According to Dr. Gazi Türkoglu from BASF’s Competence Center Packaging & Consumer Goods, the analysis showed that the amount of stabilizer in recycled polyolefins is usually low, frequently less than 500 ppm. In particular, practically all of the added phosphites had been consumed. The quantity was no longer adequate for a sensible reuse of the recyclates. For example, the melt flow index is increased, and also the long-term strength of the polymers is no longer ensured.

Therefore, continued Türkoglu, a precise analysis of the remaining quantity of stabilizer in the recycled plastics as well as a re-additivation is required. BASF has developed corresponding stabilizers for PP. With the IrgaCycle series, for example, a clearly reduced melt flow index is achievable, said Türkoglu. Moreover, with Irgaclear XT 386 the company has introduced a clarifier specifically for recycling plastics. The additive reduces turbidity to a similar extent as comparable products, but with a ten times lower concentration. Also regarding elastic modulus, the additive permits similar values to be achieved, but with a more than ten times lower concentration than with reference additives. According to Türkoglu, the additive also retains its effect during several recycling cycles. For example, after five extrusion cycles, turbidity is reduced about as much as in the first cycle.

Also Dover Chemicals is involved in the stabilization of polyolefin recyclates. In his lecture, the company’s EMEA Director Dr. Michael Davies, showed how the additive Doverphos LGP-12 is used to produce films from LLDPE recyclates. He pointed out that processing of recycled LLDPE into films has previously been a great challenge. One of the reasons is the low phosphite content in the recycled material. Phosphites are used e.g. to prevent polymer degradation during production, but are consumed in the process. But, according to Davies, things are different with the phosphite Doverphos LGP-12. Its use results in a phosphite content that remains also after production and recycling, thereby protecting the PE from degradation.

What is more, the additive is claimed to reduce the necessary processing temperature by 20 °C. Davies said that it can also be combined with vitamin E to reduce yellowing. Investigations showed that after several extrusion cycles, the yellowness index increases only slightly. Furthermore, it reduces gel formation in films, one of the major difficulties when extruding LLDPE recyclates into films. After use with 30 % PCR material, analyses showed that gel formation was reduced by 44 % – with 30 % PIR it is even 83 % lower. According to Davies, these values show that the additive is highly suited as a processing aid in the production of LLDPE films.

In addition, it contains no PFAS, he added. In view of the EU Commission’s planned ban of these substances, it therefore represents a good alternative for previously used agents. With this, he addressed a topic that is currently concerning plastics and additive producers. Also Kathrin Lehmann from Evonik discussed this issue in her lecture. With Tegomer 6850, the company has introduced a replacement for fluorine-based processing aids. The product is an organo-modified siloxane (OMS) with a PP carrier. It is halogen-free, and was developed to prevent the formation of the “shark skin effect” during film extrusion.

Another problem for recycling involves contaminations in recyclates caused by other polymers. Particularly with mixed plastic wastes, fully pure grade sorting is not possible. Therefore, the processed plastics frequently contain small quantities of other plastic types – e.g. small amounts of the respective other polyolefin with PE and PP recyclates. One solution for this problem involves compatibilizers, said Freddy Vervoort, staff scientist with Kraton. They create a bond between the different plastics, thereby improving the mixture’s properties.

Thanks to their two-phase structure, styrene-butadiene copolymers (SBC) are claimed to be highly suitable. They consist of a PS and a rubber portion, which enables them to bond with the different polymers contained in the recyclates. Hereby, the bonds result from intra-molecular Van der Waals forces. According to Vervoort, the addition of corresponding SBC developed by Kraton ensures a more stable mixture, thereby increasing its impact resistance; an effect that remains over several extrusion cycles. Kraton has already implemented corresponding projects with various customers, whereby the use of SBC C2000 and C3000 enabled virgin PP and PE to be replaced with recycled versions. The products involved are e.g. paint buckets, garbage cans, and garbage bags.

Many producers are working on additives for improving the quality of polyolefins. Also Nexam Chemical has introduced corresponding types, both for PP as well as for LDPE and HDPE. During the conference, Henrik Bernquist, the company’s business development manager, showed that LDPE PCR can be modified accordingly, enabling it to be blow molded subsequently. He said that the additive Nexamite R305 used in this case improves the recyclate’s flow properties, reduces the melt flow rate, and increases its environmental stress cracking resistance (ESCR). In addition, it acts as compatibilizer for contaminants due to PP. The company has also developed corresponding products for PP, which in turn act as compatibilizers with PE contaminants, and are also claimed to improve the processing properties, e.g. the melt flow rate.

Fraunhofer Institut für Betriebsfestigkeit und Systemzuverlässigkeit LBF

https://www.lbf.fraunhofer.de

Ausgabenartikel

Quite clearly, the central theme of this year’s conference  was additives for recycling materials.

Conference chairman Prof. Rudolf Pfaendner welcomed the participants of the Forum’s fifth issue. 

KUint4-23_PK - Hauptartikel

Forum Plastic Recyclates 2023

More information about the Forum under <a href="https://www.lbf.fraunhofer.de/en/events/forum-plastic-recyclates.html" target="_blank">www.kunststoffrezyklate.de</a>

Read the German version of the article in our magazine Kunststoffe or at <a href="https://www.kunststoffe.de/a/fachartikel/wie-wichtig-additive-fuer-das-kunststoff-4702014" target="_blank">www.kunststoffe.de</a>

issue 08/2023

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