Speaker
Description
Polypropylene (PP) is the world’s second most widely used commodity polymer accounting for 13% of total usage by value (23% by volume) and is employed for a huge variety of purposes including packaging, textiles, furnishings, pipes, vehicle components, electrical equipment, ropes and even banknotes. As an oil-derived polymer the downside to PP is that it is a non-sustainable resource as well as an increasing pollution problem. At present only 1% of PP is recycled, for which mostly mechanical and/or thermal recycling methods are employed. These generally result in low quality products, and the rest ends up in either landfills or oceans.
Under the framework of the ISOPREP project funded by the European Commission, focus is put on an innovative, alternative approach for the recycling of PP from multicomponent waste carpet. A recycling process was developed using a proprietary solvent enabling the selective dissolution and recovery of PP. Starting from the pre-processes to increase the PP content in the waste carpet feedstock materials, the dissolution, dye removal, and precipitation processes were developed and optimized in order to obtain high purity recycled PP along with solvent recovery processes. Detailed analyses showed that the newly developed recycling process had no effect on the chemical structure of PP and all thermal transitions as well as thermal decomposition behaviour of the recycled PP polymer were identical to that of pure PP polymer. The process completely removes other polymers, dyes, metals and other contaminants, hence it represents a more environmentally friendly alternative end of life solution for the increasing amount of polypropylene carpet worldwide. Recycled PP was used in subsequent compounding and extrusion processes to produce multicomponent fibres and coatings for textile applications with enhanced fire-retardant, electrical conductivity or improved antimicrobial properties.
| Speaker Country | Austria |
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