ISWA was at the PRSE2021 show in Amsterdam at the end of last week on the 4th and 5th of November, in full project presentation mode. EU H2020 funded projects MultiCycle and Ecobulk were both on display, promoting the latest developments and getting feedback from the industry.
Ecobulk, now in its last month, brough over the author of the “Circular Design Guide” book that the project produced based on the experiences of our partners in redesigning composite products in the automotive, furniture and construction sector to integrate them into a circular lifecycle. We believe this starts with design, as this needs to integrate all of the different aspects of the lifecycle into a coherent product.
On display were also production samples from the automotive sector that have been testing different strategies to increase circularity for internal car parts. The bioplastics and natural fibre composites from partner CRF did well in all the tests except for the UV exposure. As our partner explains, the Fiat-Chrysler marriage means testing components with the exacting American standards which in this case includes withstanding the Arizona desert sun without discoloration. Visitors to the exhibition were still intrigued on the potential applications in less demanding contexts.
There was also plenty of attention to the use of GFRPs from wind turbines in construction materials. These thermoset materials can be crushed and used as structural filler in thermoplastic extrusion profiles that are weatherproof and can therefore be used in light outdoor constructions like sheds and benches. By injecting the color during production, no maintenance is needed until end-of-life, when the material can be re-crushed and remanufactured into the same quality material with only a little additional virgin plastic.
For those that missed it, and/or are interested to learn more, the Ecobulk Final Conference will be held online on the 26th of November. There we will present the prototypes and circular supporting technologies developed during the project to demonstrate that circularity for composites is not only possible, but realistic and attractive.
MultiCycle
MultiCycle is currently working on the demonstration of applications of already high quality recovered materials. The pilot plant has been successful in recovering from post-consumer and post-industrial waste fractions: rPE (from light weight packaging waste with average PE content, ~50%), reinforcedPE (from light weight packaging waste with high PE content, ~75%), rPET + vPP, rPP + vGF and rPA + vGF.
The next stage is to test those materials in real life applications such as packaging and autoparts. Currently those demonstrations are in progress, and we expect to have complete results by Q1 2022.
The project will run into April 2021 and soon after, the pilot plant used for the waste fractions targeting the project will be open for further testing of any types of troublesome materials.
Please contact us if you would like to get your materials tested and the volumes make enough for a plant business case.
You can contact the project coordinator of ISWA Alan Encinas – aencinas@iswa.org.
The MultiCycle team was also there promoting their project based on the patented Creasolv process. As part of their activities, they were there to investigate and survey industry stakeholders. To enable adoption of the solutions that the MultiCycle project proposes it is necessary to gauge and understand the current policy atmosphere around the key sectors and materials associated with the project, exploring questions like where the opportunities lie to increase recycling rate, and what are the current barriers and incentives (or lack of incentives) to implementing advanced solutions for multilayer packaging and automotive composites. If you would like to add your opinion to this on the multilayer packaging waste fraction, you can follow this link to the survey [link].
