Discover the Map of availability of plastic wastes across Europe
The mid-term report on availability of plastic waste across Europe (Deliverable 9.7) has been drafted by European Plastics Converters (EuPC), and it complements the initial report delivered in the first year of the project (month 12). In addition, it provides additional information/data on EU plastics market and waste management. Specifically, the mapping covers the followings:
Plastics market and the main market segments of polyurethane (PU) and polyamide (PA) in Europe
Identification of PU and PA waste streams and their share to total solid waste production in Europe
Analysis of the waste treatment processes and current developments for recycling of PU and PA waste
Furthermore, the report highlights the effects of COVID-19 pandemic on PU and PA production and its impact on some end-use markets throughout Europe. The final report (Deliverable 9.10) will be submitted toward the end of the project (month 42).
From Concept to Reality. First palpable results of polynSPIRE.
The polynSPIRE project aims to achieve the recyclability of several polymers with cutting edge technologies, which will allow to embrace a circular economy in the plastic industry. Within the project, different technologies are being investigated.
One of the approaches in the project is to generate crosslinking between the polymeric chains of the wasted materials to recover their properties and use them in the same products that the raw material. To achieve this crosslinking the project has looked into gamma irradiation, to generate the free radicals that will give place to the crosslinked structure in the polymeric materials, more specifically PA6.
The partners of the project have studied different doses and how the different doses, storage conditions, air presence and many other variables affect the quality and quantity of the crosslinked material.
AITIIP has led the experimental part, and together with Circe, have taken the experimental results and developed a digital tool to predict the required gamma rays doses to obtain the desired properties in the material.
Furthermore, our partners from The Slovenian National Institute of Chemistry (NIC) reported an efficient (several minutes) microwave-assisted chemical recycling process of aliphatic polyamides in ACS Sustainable Chem. Eng. 2020, 8, 16274. It results in a complete and straightforward conversion of polyamide (PA) into the constituent monomers, simplifying the isolation and purification of monomers, and reinforcing additives in the case of PA-based composites.
The secondary raw materials thus obtained are of comparable quality to commercially available chemicals. In addition, a rapid, robust, and convenient method for the quantitative determination of PA6 and PA66 polyamides in plastic waste was developed (ACS Sustainable Chem. Eng. 2020, 8, 11818). Information on the content of a particular PA type in plastic waste is important as it determines the maximum recovery of PA constituent monomer(s) by chemical recycling and consequently the suitability of the waste as a raw material.
polynSPIRE in trend! A collection of our most recent articles and magazines.
polynSPIRE partners are continuously publishing the results of the project and they are also promoting our project via different scientific publications, periodical magazines, open access journals, etc.
Our project has been presented in the latest issue of the Open Access Government magazine. The article introduces our innovative project and provides additional information regarding polynSPIRE, including our approach to the problem of plastics waste, the objective of the project, innovative solutions, etc. The entire article can be found here on page 440.
polynSPIRE project was featured in the Chemical Processing magazine as a cover story. The article presented 3 innovative projects and it gave important information regarding our project, including consortium layout, the objective of the project, polynSPIRE innovations, etc. The entire article can be found here.
In addition, open access publications generated via polynSPIRE project can be found on our website here. We will update this page regularly with new publications, but in meantime feel free to have a look at following scientific articles:
Chemical Recycling of Aliphatic Polyamides by Microwave-Assisted Hydrolysis for Efficient Monomer Recovery Urška Češarek, David Pahovnik, and Ema Žagar. ACS Sustainable Chem. Eng. 2020, 8, 43, 16274–16282. [Repository Link: https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acssuschemeng.0c05706]
Quantitative Determination of PA6 and/or PA66 Content in Polyamide-Containing Wastes Ema Žagar*, Urška Češarek, Ana Drinčić, Simona Sitar, Igor M. Shlyapnikov, and David Pahovnik. ACS Sustainable Chem. Eng. 2020, 8, 31, 11818–11826. [Repository Link: https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acssuschemeng.0c04190]
Finite element model for microwave heating used in chemical recycling of plastic waste material
A. Frisa-Rubio*, C. González-Niño, N. García-Polanco, T. García-Armingol
COMSOL Conference 2020 Europe
[Repository Link: https://www.comsol.com/paper/finite-element-model-for-microwave-heating-used-in-chemical-recycling-of-plastic-95071]
polynSPIRE: Building a future without plastic waste
Open Access Government magazine. Eng.2020. 440-441
[Repository Link: https://edition.pagesuite-professional.co.uk/html5/reader/production/default.aspx?pubname=&edid=a7aef526-7afd-4c66-8b33-ab775edf4c9b]
El proyecto polynSPIRE innova en tecnologías viables para la recuperación de residuos plásticos
Revista AVEP. Spanish.2020. 30-32
[Repository Link: https://issuu.com/avepinfo/docs/avep_124_octubre_2020]