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.