Balance sheet 2021/22: New growth in revenues with state-of-the-art recycling technologies

Manfred Hackl (CEO): „This past financial year, we again set several milestones.“

16:9

Recycling

Umweltmanagement

Kunststoff-Recycling

Kunststoffverarbeitung: Verfahren

Kunststoff-Aufbereitung

Kreislaufwirtschaft

Erema: Large-Scale Plants Drive Growth

As part of a new effort to advance the use of recycled ocean plastic, Sabic and Microsoft have collaborated to create Microsoft’s first consumer electronic product – The Microsoft Ocean Plastic Mouse – with an exterior shell containing 20% recycled ocean plastic.

Computer Mouse Made Partly out of Ocean Plastic

The state of Upper Austria has recognised Engel Austria´s commitment to building up a circular economy for plastics with the Upper Austrian Environmental Award 2021.

State Councillor Stefan Kaineder (left) congratulating Engel‘s Vice President Marketing Ute Panzer and Günther Klammer, Vice President Recycling at Engel, on winning the State Environmental Award

Co-Injektion (Barriere-/Sandwich-Spritzgießen)

Spritzgießen

Engel´s Skinmelt Technologie Awarded

LyondellBasell has obtained the International Sustainability and Carbon Certification Plus certification for certain grades of polyethylene and polypropylene produced at four of its U.S. manufacturing sites.

Pictured is LyondellBasell’s Channelview Complex. The company has obtained the ISCC Plus certification for certain grades of polyethylene and polypropylene produced at four of its U.S. manufacturing sites

Polyethylen

Kunststoff Werkstoffe

Thermoplaste

Polypropylen

LyondellBasell Gains ISCC Plus Certification

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

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

Spritzgieß-Sonderverfahren

Nachhaltigkeit

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

Lasermarkieren

Oberflächentechnik

Laserbearbeitungen

Inline- / Online-Messsysteme

Qualitätssicherung

Qualitätssicherung Kunststoff

There Is More beyond the Horizon

Together with the University of Applied Sciences Magdeburg-Stendal, Germany, MultiPet GmbH is researching into injection-moldable blends that can be used to produce high-quality multi structured injection-molded parts from mixed PET.

Colorful mixture: the recycling of mixed fractions from bottles, blisters and trays remains a major challenge

Production of Injection-Moldable PET-Blends from Mixed Plastic Fractions

Polyethylenterephthalat

rPET Blends for High Standards

Caracol and NextChem (Maire Tecnimont group) partnered to create Beluga: a joint research project to produce the first 3D printed sailing boat prototype made in a single piece with MyReplast recycled material.

Caracol and NextChem bring to life the 3D printed sailing boat Beluga

Anlagen Additive Fertigung / 3D-Druck, andere

Anlagen für die Additive Fertigung

Caracol and NextChem Bring to Life Beluga

The circular economy and more sustainable additives are the focus of AF Color’s Fakuma presence this year.

The circular economy and more sustainable additives are the focus of AF Color’s trade show presence this year

Masterbatches

Additive

Messe Fakuma

kunststoffe-international.com

Polyamide

Hochleistungskunststoffe

Biobased Additives and Orange for PA

Emmi, Borealis and Greiner Packaging jointly develop the first chemically recycled polypropylene ready to drink iced coffee cups

By turning challenging and difficult to mechanically recycle plastic waste back into chemical feedstocks, chemical recycling is part of the solution to improve recycling rates while diverting plastic waste from landfill or incineration

Cooperation on Chemical Recycling of Polypropylene

Hexpol TPE, the international polymer compounding group, has expanded their range of Thermoplastic Elastomer (TPE) materials with recycled content. The new Dryflex Circular TPE grades have been tested for odor and emissions performance in automotive interiors.

Post-industrial waste streams from plastic part production are incorporated into Dryflex Circular TPE materials for automotive interior applications

Thermoplastische Elastomere

TPE Compounds with Recycled Content

Both the quantity of recycled plastics waste and of processed recyclates is continually increasing. However, there are still difficulties with the quality of the recycled plastics, which are impeding replacement of virgin material. In recent years, machinery manufacturers and plastics producers have introduced various further developments that improve the properties of recyclates as well as eliminate unpleasant odors and contaminants.

Plastics recycling is a laborious process. For the recycled material to have the necessary quality, it must first be sorted into the different plastics

Overcoming Difficulties in Plastics Recycling

Streifinger, Florian

Extruder

Extrusionsanlagen

Trockner

Waschen und Entfetten

Trockner, Granulat-

Sortierer

Inspektion, Analyse und Sortierung von Rohmaterial

QualitÃ¤tssicherung

QualitÃ¤tssicherung Kunststoff

The Long Road to a Circular Economy

Pure Loop, an Erema Group company, will present its Isec evo series at Fakuma. This shredder-extruder combination is rapidly becoming established as an efficient recycling solution in injection molding production thanks to its high flexibility in processing different materials, simple operation and low maintenance requirements.

The Isec evo shredder-extruder combination is considered an efficient material all-rounder

A Shredder-Extruder Combination as a Recycling Solution in Injection Molding Production

With the Sortex A GlowVision sorting solution, Switzerland-based Bühler AG introduces a 4-in-1’ optical sorting solution that can be used for simultaneous color, polymer, foreign material and loose-label sorting.

Sortex A Glow Vision is used for optical sorting

Sorting Solution for Bottle-to-Bottle and Food Applications

Materialhandling

4-in-1 Sorter for PET Recyclers

Lindner, one of the leading manufacturers of shredders, system solutions and industrial washing systems for plastics recycling, is presenting a new hot-wash system for recycling PET, as well as a new premium shredder.

The shredder from the Micromat series is robust and easy to maintain. Thanks to the hydraulic hatch, the rotor can be rapidly and easily accessed

PET Hot-Wash System and Premium Shredder

Dow, HP, Reifenhäuser, Cadel Deinking and Karlville present a feasibility study for recycling digitally printed polyethylene barrier packaging into new high-quality PE bags.

Key industry players combine forces to recycle PE-based barrier pouch into new high-quality PE pouch suitable for repeat recycling

Technik Trend

Important Step towards Pouch-to-Pouch Recycling

Composite films are successfully used in the packaging industry to reduce the weight of the packaging material and to increase the product shelf life. Thus, they contribute significantly to CO2 reduction. However, due to functional requirements, composite structures often use incompatible plastics, which prevent recycling in proven mechanical re-extrusion processes. Solvent-based recycling processes offer an attractive and technically mature solution to tackle the challenge.

Flexible packaging materials have become indispensable in food and household goods packaging, for example for sausages, cheese, snacks or detergents and soap products. For optimum product protection, multi-layer structures are composed of different polymers, thus significantly extending the shelf life of food packaged in this way. Good sealability, light protection and water vapor barrier of polyolefins are combined with the good oxygen barrier or stiffness of EVOH, PET or PA. In terms of weight, the polyolefin content usually dominates in composite packaging, but such composite film structures also contain other intermediate layers as well as printing inks and aluminum – either as aluminum foil or as a vapor-deposited aluminum layer.

Physical Dissolution of Plastics from Composite Structures

From a recycling point of view, multilayer packaging is almost impossible to integrate into a circular economy due to the material heterogeneity, so that today’s models for assessing recyclability only attest good recyclability to composite packaging in exceptional cases. Instead they advise the use of mono-material multilayer composites made of combinations of PE and PP with small amounts of barrier layers. Whether these materials offer the same product protection as conventional packaging and whether real waste management is able to collect, sort and process these novel composites into high-quality recyclates with high yields is currently still subject of research and development activities.

For two decades the Fraunhofer Institute for Process Engineering and Packaging IVV has been working on innovative technical solutions for the recycling of complex plastic waste based on the physical dissolution of target plastics from compounds and composite structures. Compared to mechanical recycling, this achieves a very high cleaning potential. This is where CreaSolv comes into play, a registered trademark of Creacycle GmbH. The process is based on old patents describing the dissolution of polyolefins and combines these approaches with innovative and technically highly efficient cleaning technologies. The process was already developed in the early 2000s for various packaging wastes. Since that time it has been continuously optimized technically and economically, scaled up and repeatedly validated with industry partners. Due to its high cleaning capability, the process is particularly suitable for flexible packaging, both for composite films from industrial waste and for post-consumer waste of flexible packaging materials.

Successful Field Test: Industrial Pilot Plant Running in Indonesia

As early as the beginning of the 2010s, Unilever became aware of the CreaSolv process and evaluated it, first in the laboratory and then on a small-technical scale. The preferred application of the process was primarily small-volume multilayer film bags, so-called sachets, which have a high market share in Southeast Asia and are not subjected to adequate waste management there. Instead, they end up, at best, in large landfills, but realistically, unfortunately, far too often in the environment and ultimately contribute to the plastic pollution of waters and oceans. In cooperation with Unilever and Lömi GmbH, the process developers at the IVV designed an industrial CreaSolv plant, which was built in Germany and, after a short test phase, shipped to the site in Indonesia. After commissioning in 2018 and a ramp-up phase in early 2019, the plant has since been producing LDPE recyclate. Post-consumer multilayer film waste is used as input material, which is collected by waste pickers at Indonesian landfills and pre-cleaned. The recyclate is now successfully applied in new composite film packaging for detergents (Fig. 1).

Based on this successful initial plant, the European H2020 project MultiCycle was initiated at the end of 2018. As part of the project, it was intended to prove that the CreaSolv technology can be applied to other target polymers in multilayer packaging and plastic composites (including PP, PA, PA-GF or PET). For this purpose, a flexibly adaptable demonstrator plant was set up at a Lömi site. The plant is designed for alternating demonstration operation for different waste and plastic fractions and reaches a capacity of up to 25 kg/h, depending on the operating mode (Fig. 2).

MultiCycle Plant for a Wide Variety  of Plastic Fractions

At the above-mentioned Multicycle plant, post-consumer composite films as well as production waste from various composite films were processed into LDPE and PP recyclates. The table lists realistic product characteristics of the recyclates that are currently being sampled by Multicycle project partners and used for the production of non-food packaging demonstrators due to their virgin-like property profile.

After the end of the project, the demonstration plant will be available from the beginning of 2022 for further sampling trials with research and industry partners who want to test or evaluate solvent-based recycling on a pre-commercial scale. Recyclate quantities of 500 to 1000 kg can be produced at the plant under representative process conditions. The plant is not only used for the preparation and conceptual testing of new commercial plant projects, but can also help to prove the recyclability of plastic packaging. In order to be able to meet the numerous enquiries from industry, a second comparable demonstration capacity is currently being set up at the Fraunhofer IVV in Freising, Germany.

The industrial implementation of the CreaSolv technology is also being driven forward rapidly on a national basis. The data available from the aforementioned projects clearly prove the technical and economic attractiveness of the process on an industrial scale. This is shown by model calculations and business plans for large-scale industrial plants, which are based on the respective national framework conditions, site conditions and waste specifications. Against this background, the commercialization of CreaSolv is currently being investigated in more detail and continued in the r+ impuls Circular Packaging project funded by the German BMBF. For a site in north-eastern Bavaria, the project partners Lömi, Fraunhofer IVV and Lober GmbH & Co. Abfallentsorgungs KG are currently working on a commercial plant concept for flexible post-consumer packaging. The envisaged technology scale-up is accompanied by technical optimization tests on the one hand and results in detailed engineering for a commercial recycling plant on the other.

Economical Plant Operation  from 8000 t/a

For Germany and Central Europe, current calculations indicate economical plant operation from capacities of around 8000 t/a. Common waste fractions from the sorting plants of the German dual systems can be used as input, such as fractions 323 or 352.

Current product samples of LDPE and PP recyclates achieve a quality that allows their use in new packaging films with a high proportion of post-consumer recyclate (PCR). This depends on the film structure and area of application, but a PCR content of over 50 % is certainly achievable. The sample productions reveal that the maturity of the technology meets industrial requirements and that only a few technical details remain to be solved for commercial and technical scale-up.

Available test data, calculations and market developments confirm the team of process developers, plant engineers and waste management experts in their assumption that the solvent-based CreaSolv process can make a substantial contribution to the circular economy of complex plastic waste in the future, especially in the area of flexible packaging. The volume of this waste is immense and amounts to around 1 million t per year in Germany alone, which is currently mainly recycled as secondary fuel and thus removed from a plastics cycle. If solvent-based processes achieve only a market share of 20 % despite their significantly higher cleaning performance compared to mechanical recycling, this results in a potential of 10 to 20 processing plants with capacities of 10,000 to 20,000 t/a each. The development team will implement the technology in commercial industrial plants in close cooperation with investors and potential plant operators. Fraunhofer is acting as the process provider, while Lömi, together with its sister company GAW Technologies GmbH, is acting as the plant construction partner. As the operator of the first commercial CreaSolv plant for packaging plastics in Germany, Lober GmbH & Co. Abfallentsorgungs KG in Neuburg vorm Wald, Germany, stands at the forefront.

Fraunhofer-Institut für Verfahrenstechnik u Verpackung IVV 

https://www.ivv.fraunhofer.de

Ausgabenartikel

The CreaSolv technology enables recycling of laminated films. 

Table 1. Typical properties of a LDPE PCR compared to LDPE and LLDPE virgin material

Fig. 1. Blow film production in Indonesia based on recycled LDPE.

Fig. 2. The demonstration plant of Lömi GmbH processes up to 25 kg of different waste fractions per hour.

Name - Hauptartikel

Dr. Martin Schlummer is Business Field Manager Recycling and Environment at the Fraunhofer Institute for Process Engineering and Packaging IVV.

Jochen Neubauer is a packaging specialist for the closed-loop use of rPO at the Fraunhofer IVV.

Dr.-Ing. Fabian Knappich is group leader Implementation Polymer Recycling Plants at the Fraunhofer IVV.

Dr. Andreas Mäurer is head of the department of Process Development Polymer Recycling at the Fraunhofer IVV.

Ulrich Weig is head of the substitute fuels/industrial waste sorting of the Lober GmbH, Neunburg vorm Wald, Germany.

Marcel Backfisch is project manager at Lömi GmbH Grossostheim, Germany, a subsidiary of GAW Beteiligungs GmbH.

Alexander Rinderhofer is Managing Director of GAW Beteiligungs GmbH, Graz, Austria, and is responsible for the Recycling and Environmental Technology.