Tue, 25 January, 2022
One of the challenges for end of life (EoL) plastic recycling is the control of the variations in feedstock quality.
EoL plastic can be treated by mechanical, chemical or thermo-chemical recycling.
Mechanical recycling employs mechanical processes (grinding, shredding, etc) to obtain polymer granules without altering polymer’s molecular structure
Chemical recycling employs chemical depolymerisation processes while thermo-chemical recycling uses heat to break down polymer chains into monomers.
These depolymerisation processes are associated with higher operational costs compared to mechanical recycling.
However, chemical and thermo-chemical recycling techniques have the advantage of recovering the basic hydrocarbons that can be used to re-manufacture virgin-like polymers and therefore control variations in product quality.
Further development in chemical and thermo-chemical processes will help to create value in hard to recycle EoL plastics.
The ISOPREP project offers an innovative approach to recycling end-of-life polypropylene products back into virgin quality polypropylene using solvent based technology.
This technology is a cost effective approach for the upcycling or circular reuse of end of life Polypropylene (PP) materials.