NOVPOL

Europe produces approximately 21.15 million tonnes of post consumer plastic waste every year and only 16.5% recycled. Current recycling technologies require the plastic waste to be either sorted into polymer families or to be compatibilised by the use of expensive block copolymers. The sorting of polymers is vitally important and less than 0.01% cross contamination can ruin the entire batch. Equipment to sort plastics is being developed, but currently most recyclers are still sorting plastics by hand which is expensive and time consuming. For these reasons the market for using recycled plastic is less developed than it might be and the market price reflects this. The proposed Co-operative project, NOVPOL, aims to address these problems by enabling the recycling of mixed plastic waste to produce a homogenized thermoplastic with enhanced mechanical and processing properties when compared to the average properties of the constituent plastics. Basic feasibility work has been carried out on the proposed process that demonstrated the ability to recycle a mixture of incompatible plastics (such as a ground up car interior) to create an all new homogenized thermoplastic polymer. Technological Objectives: Create a homogeniser to operate continually with output of at least 500kg/hour based on a 100kW drive motor. Create a homogeniser with the ability of generating a nominal tip speed of at least 30m/s and the ability to process at least 6 million kg of polymer before requiring a major service. Create a complete Novpol recycling system with the ability to recycle a mixture of at least five different polymers and produce new? polymers with enhanced mechanical properties that are not currently available. Economic Objectives: Provide a cost-effective recycling route for mixed polymer waste that produces recyclate with enhanced mechanical properties suitable for engineering applications that can demand a selling price of at least 80% of virgin polymers.