PACKAGING/PALLETISING PETplanet Insider Vol. 23 No. 03/22 www.petpla.net 26 Recycling in packaging by Dr.-Ing. Martin Facklam, Managing Director Training and Further Education at Institute for Plastics Processing in Industry and Craft (IKV) at RWTH Aachen University With the European Green Deal, the course has been set at EU level for an international shift towards a circular economy. A key objective is to promote sustainable products, business models and services, to adapt consumption patterns with the aim of avoiding or reducing waste, and also to establish a well-functioning internal market for high-quality secondary raw materials in the EU. For this reason, the basic requirements for packaging for approval on the EU market are to be tightened by 2030. The main topics in this context are: A reduction in packaging volumes and waste by reducing packaging complexity, including product-specific material variety; Promoting the reusability and recyclability of packaging through appropriate designs; Regulations for the safe recycling of plastics as food approved material. These focal points give rise to technical issues that can be addressed with the help of plasma technologies and digital solutions. The Institute for Plastics Processing in Industry and Craft (IKV) has been researching in the field of plastics recycling for many years and is currently developing highly functional layer systems in the field of packaging for various specific fields of application, which are outlined below. Reduction of complex (multi-material) packaging through plasma technology Complex multilayer composites made of different plastics, each of which fulfils a necessary packaging function, are currently still strongly represented in packaging technology. After use, these composites can only be thermally recycled because they can no longer be separated by type. With the help of Plasma Enhanced Chemical Vapour Deposition (PECVD) technology, plastics can be equipped with a high-quality gas barrier, whereby the recyclability of the plastic is not impaired. In the discussions on the circular economy, plasma technology has developed into a highly dynamic field of research with broad relevance and decisive innovative power. The packaging market is facing major changes due to the challenges of transitioning to a circular plastics economy. Films are already being successfully coated with a barrier layer in discontinuous “roll-to-roll” coating processes. To improve the process economy, however, there is currently still a lack of a continuous process variant to avoid the unavoidable dead times in previous batch processes. This disadvantage is to be circumvented with an innovative system development for continuous PECVD film coating. The film is unwound under ambient pressure and fed through a double door system into a vacuum chamber, where a SiOx coating is efficiently applied using a so-called “in-plasma concept”. The film is then guided back through the double door system to ambient pressure and wound up. The process can be carried out without interruption by means of commercially available tying procedures. To work out the complex airlock and vacuum system, the required pumping capacity is currently being evaluated and a sealing concept is being developed (see Figure 1). Figure 1: Experimental set-up for pump design (image: IKV) Reusable and recyclable design in the Deep Tech start-up IonKraft The potential and innovative power of plasma technology for the circular economy is demonstrated by the founding of the Deep Tech startup IonKraft, which has its roots at the IKV. IonKraft transfers scientific findings from plasma research into industrial production technology. Building on research and development work in the 1980s at the IKV, which today has led to marketable products in the form of the internal coating of PET bottles, IonKraft focuses on developing a system technology for coating large-volume hollow bodies. For these packagings, which are frequently used in agricultural technology, for example, also require barrier properties for various reasons, which up to now can only be solved by multi-material systems that are difficult to recycle. Scaling up the process to larger volumes certainly places new demands on coating plant technology, which must be achieved through design innovations in vacuum technology and microwave technology. Furthermore, the sometimes aggressive agricultural products also place new demands on the PECVD barrier layer, which must have a media-specific resistance for this purpose (see Figure 2). The business project is funded by the Exist research transfer programme of the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy. Digitalisation as a solution approach for sustainable recyclate use The complex and highly variable composition of recyclates, in combination with the lack of evaluation
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