Day: 27 October 2022

Carbon-fibers – Polyamide-recycling

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-Plastics of the future will have many past lives, thanks to chemical recycling

Fully recyclable network polymers can be perpetually broken down and remade

One day in the not-too-distant future, the plastics in satellites, cars and electronics may all be living their second, 25th or 250th lives.

New research from the University of Colorado Boulder, published in Nature Chemistry, details how a class of durable plastics widely used in the aerospace and microelectronics industries can be chemically broken down into their most basic building blocks and then formed once again into the same material. The research was supported by the U.S. National Science Foundation.

It’s a major step in the development of repairable and fully recyclable network polymers, a particularly challenging material to recycle, as it is designed to hold its shape and integrity in extreme heat and other harsh conditions. The study documents how this type of plastic can be perpetually broken down and remade, without sacrificing its desired physical properties.

Conventional recycling methods mechanically break down polymers into powders, burn them or use bacterial enzymes to dissolve them. The goal is to end up with smaller pieces that can be used to make a new product — think shoes made from recycled rubber tires or clothing made from recycled plastic water bottles.

But what if recycling didn’t just offer a second life to plastics, but a repeat experience, being formed again into the same material?

That is what the researchers have accomplished. They reversed a chemical method and discovered they can both break and form chemical bonds in a high-performance polymer.

They do it by breaking the polymer — “poly” meaning “many” — back into singular monomers, a concept of reversible or dynamic chemistry. This method has created a new class of polymer material that, like Legos, can be easily built, broken apart and rebuilt. The method can be applied to existing, especially hard-to-recycle, polymers.

The results also suggest that revisiting the chemical structures of other plastic materials could lead to similar discoveries of how to fully break down and rebuild their chemical bonds, enabling the circular production of more plastic materials in everyday life.

“The ability to repeatedly recycle plastics without loss of performance is critical for the economy and environmental sustainability,” said Siddiq Qidwai, a program director in NSF’s Division of Civil, Mechanical and Manufacturing Innovation.

-Mussel Polymers announces new multifunctional carbon, aramid fiber coating

Specialty materials company produces poly(catechol-styrene) polymer that effectively bonds with many materials, providing enhanced adhesion and other surface functionalizing benefits.

In September 2022, Mussel Polymers Inc. (MPI, Bethlehem, Pa., U.S.) a specialty materials and coatings startup company from Purdue University (West Lafayette, Ind., U.S.), announced that it successfully coated carbon and aramid fibers with its bio-inspired poly(catechol-styrene) (PCS) catechol-containing polymer, which it says is a step forward in producing lighter, stronger fiber-reinforced composites.

According to MPI, PCS coatings improve bonding for a wide range of adhesive and composite chemistries while functionalizing material surfaces. This application of PCS is likely to significantly increase the strength and impact energy of fiber-reinforced materials and improve the use of coatings and adhesives with carbon fiber parts and materials.

While carbon and aramid fibers possess many positive attributes, they are notoriously difficult to bond with because they are smooth and chemically inert. Previous work coating carbon and aramid fibers with polydopamine (PDA), a catechol containing research agent-like PCS, showed that the shear strength of a single coated fiber pulled from its matrix increased more than 200% compared to that of a raw fiber. Further, the flexural strength and impact energy of reinforced composites made with the catechol-coated fibers increased more than 200%. Carbon-fibers – Polyamide-recycling

PCS is reported to be the first commercially available catechol compound used to coat carbon fibers, among its many other uses. MPI is developing products for applications in the dental, biomedical, defense, specialty coatings, industrial and marine industries.

“The MPI team successfully coated carbon and aramid fibers with PCS using a simple one-step, room temperature process,” Jason Stieg, chief commercial officer (CCO) of MPI, says. “These coated fibers were examined under the scanning electron microscope [SEM] at Lehigh University [Bethlehem, Pa., U.S.]. The resulting images were striking and showed complete coverage of the fibers. The ability of our polymer to bond to these surfaces has applicability in both advanced composite materials and the assembly and coating of carbon fiber parts.”

George Boyajian, CEO of MPI, says the company expects to expand its partnerships with new materials and products companies. Furthermore, the simplicity of the coating process may accelerate its adoption and enable safer and more environmentally sound materials.

-Bayernoil and Biofabrik cooperate on chemical recycling

Bayneroil has committed to purchasing Biofabrik’s pyrolysis oil.

Biofabrik and Bayernoil Raffineriegesellschaft mbH have signed a commercial agreement to advance chemical recycling. Bayernoil is a refinery business located in Bavaria, Germany, that processes crude oils, gases and other feedstocks.

With the agreement, Bayneroil has committed itself to the purchase Biofabrik’s pyrolysis oil. This synthetic crude oil is supplied by Biofabrik’s global distributor network, based entirely on Wastx Plastic technology, designed to be applied anywhere.

The goal is to close the value cycle, reduce dependencies on fossil fuels and gain further expertise in sustainable oils. The scope of the partnership also includes extensive research on the optimization and multiplication of value chains and processing routines for pyrolysis oils. Carbon-fibers – Polyamide-recycling

As part of this partnership, Biofabrik says it can guarantee all existing and new partners and customers the purchase of their decentral oils at favorable conditions. Biofabrik says it will be able to increase the profitability and attractiveness of the chemical recycling sector. This is because it allows the company to encourage more people to participate in this industry and minimize exploitation of scarce natural resources.

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-Recoup: Recycling Plastic Packaging in the UK

Recoup has published its 2022 UK Plastic Packaging Sorting & Reprocessing Infrastructure report, which found there is a clear bottleneck in the UK’s recycling infrastructure for plastic recycling.

The report highlights the UK’s ability to sort both household and non-consumer plastic packaging from other materials into separate plastic streams and to reprocess them into raw materials and products.

Recoup mapped the recycling facilities and researched the operational capacities in order to produce a number of scenarios to compare the requirements for recycled plastic packaging against the UK’s ability to produce the material. The scenarios looked at benchmarks set by both the UK Plastic Packaging Tax and if material export markets were no longer an option, something the UK relies heavily on to achieve its recycling targets.

This research found that significant increases are required for reprocessing plastic packaging in the UK. This includes the need to increase the current recycling infrastructure by five times for household-like plastic packaging and nine times for food-grade plastic packaging. Unless resolving this reprocessing bottleneck is given the necessary priority and investment, and ultimately, ownership, the UK will not be able to claim it has a world-leading recycling system. Carbon-fibers – Polyamide-recycling

Recoup believes it is imperative that adequate funding through the reform of the UK’s Packaging Producer Responsibility System (otherwise known as Extended Producer Responsibility) goes to the right areas.

-Partnership excellence that drives DOMO sustainable Ultramid® Ccycled™ solutions

DOMO Chemicals, a leader in polyamide-based engineered material solutions and services, is set to present its entire range of high-performing TECHNYL solutions to a global audience for the first time at the upcoming K 2022 show in Dusseldorf, Germany, said the company.

Climate protection and the circular economy are key themes of K 2022, which takes place between October 19-26. The event will serve as a platform to share experiences with stakeholders across the entire value chain, and innovations that will help create a safer and more sustainable plastics and polyamides industry.

As well as exploring DOMO’s latest circular innovations, visitors to K 2022 will also be able to discover more about the company’s highly ambitious sustainability objectives and collaborations through their Xperience external pavilion OA Hall 4 in booth 04.3. In addition, DOMO will also be showcasing its innovative Service Hub simulation and testing capabilities. Carbon-fibers – Polyamide-recycling

We remind, Jindal Films has signed an agreement for the acquisition of 100% of the shares in Italy-based nylon film specialist DOMO Films Solutions (DFS) from DOMO Chemicals. DFS is a major European producer of nylon films (both biaxially-oriented BOPA and cast extruded CPA) for flexible packaging in food, pharma, medical, and other industrial sectors.

-NextChem awards LanzaTech engineering contract for Hydrogen Valley project

Maire Tecnimont S.p.A. announces that NextChem, through its subsidiary MyRechemical, has kicked off the engineering phase of Hydrogen Valley in Rome, which is based on NextChem’s waste-to-chemical technology and has received the EU Commission grant within IPCEI HY2USE initiative, as already communicated, said the company.

NextChem has started, through MyRechemical, the engineering of waste conversion to Circular Gas™ that will be the feedstock for the ethanol and hydrogen production.

In this framework, NextChem has awarded LanzaTech an engineering contract to deliver a process design package for a syngas fermentation unit to produce circular ethanol for sustainable mobility and chemicals based on its biocatalyst technology.

MyRechemical’s chemical conversion technology allows the recovery of waste that cannot be mechanically recycled as well as other types of non-recyclable dry waste.

The engineering phase of the Hydrogen Valley is expected to be completed in 2023.

LanzaTech is a global leader in gas fermentation, making sustainable fuels and chemicals via biological conversion of waste carbon emissions, Carbon-fibers – Polyamide-recycling

including industrial off-gases. LanzaTech’s expertise in fermentation scale up, reactor design, machine learning and synthetic biology has enabled the company to commercialize its recycling process and demonstrate production of 100 different chemicals.

We remind, Maire Tecnimont announced that its main subsidiaries Tecnimont, KT-Kinetics Technology and Stamicarbon have been granted new awards for a total amount of approximately EUR200 mln for licensing as well as engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) activities.

Green-Hydrogen -Plastics-recycling 26-10-2022