circPLAST-mr – Mechanical recycling of plastics: from waste plastics to high-quality, specification-compliant recyclates

Plastic waste belongs neither in the sea nor in the environment. But: plastic has many faces. Therefore, a clean separation between the different types of plastic is necessary in order to improve the recycling processes of plastic. This would make it possible to better recycle the 920,000 tonnes of plastic waste that accumulates in Austria every year – which would significantly reduce the burden on the environment. In Austria, the recycling rate is currently only 26%. Thus, there is a need for action: because the EU strategy for plastics envisages a 55% recycling rate by 2030.

The circPLAST-mr research project – led by the Institute for Polymeric Materials and Testing at JKU – is now tackling this important issue. For the first time in Austria, 25 partners from industry and science are working together to increase the proportion of recycled plastics and to improve the closed loop for plastics, from production to consumer and recycling.

The overall research programme has four main objectives:

• Identify and explore as yet untapped potentials for mechanical plastics recycling.
• Determination and testing of central process steps in the laboratory/pilot scale
• Specification-compliant recyclates for eco-efficient marketability
• Demonstration of the scalability of the laboratory/pilot process steps to production scale.

AEE INTEC is leading work package 3, which deals with the washing and re-sorting of pre-sorted plastic granulates to meet defined product requirements.

The central component of WP3 is the construction of a pilot plant with the central technology modules. At this pilot plant, operating parameters as well as water and chemical management will be optimised by integrating processing technologies into the pilot plant. The process models derived from this are the basis for new optimised process chains.