EDITOUR PETplanet Insider Vol. 27 No. 01+02/26 www.petpla.net 16 Developing new chemical solutions for PET recycling by Ruari McCallion The growing trend towards circularity in packaging is driving the development of new technologies and solutions. PET bottles have a well-established recycling infrastructure - not perfect, yet, but progress towards a completely circular supply, consumption and recycling economy is well on the way, in the beverage sector in particular. This is not, so far, the case with trays, which present different challenges to recyclers. Editour Interview with MacDermid Enthone Industrial Solutions We met: Sebastian Laux, Global Business Development Manager Enrico Sobrero, Global Technical Manager MacDermid Enthone, headquartered in the USA and operating in countries across the world, has over 30 years’ experience in plastics recycling and its washing processes and has lately been focusing development resources on the mechanical recycling of PET trays. The company says that it is not merely responding to market shifts; it is working collaboratively with its customers and partners in order to shape the future. From automotive to food and beverage MacDermid Enthone is best known for its work in surface finishing; in developing plating and coating systems for automotive, and electronics applications. Its expertise in surface cleaning has also been applied to plastics for decades, shaping their approach to PET recycling, where cleaning agents and process additives must balance three key factors: performance, compliance, and operational stability. This is reflected in their formulation strategy, built on three pillars: “First, cleaning performance - removing adhesives, fats, and organic residues,” explained Laux. “Second, regulatory compliance - ensuring adherence to food-grade standards. Third, process behaviour - minimising foam and maintaining stability under turbulent conditions.” The company’s historical focus has been on PET bottles, which offer cleaner input streams and established infrastructure but growing interest in tray recovery, driven by packaging mandates and sustainability targets, encouraged the company to develop a new product line: ADDITIVE TR (Tray Recycling). Tray recycling: breaking bonds and delaminating The TR series includes formulations tailored to two process types: batch-style (stirrer) and friction-based washing systems. These additives go beyond cleaning and address delamination in multi-layer trays. “Forty per cent of trays are made from multimaterial structures. These will, typically, be PET bonded with PE through a coupling agent like glue or another polymer (EVA, EVOH or TPU). These layers are designed for shelf life and functionality, not recyclability,” Sobrero said. ADDITIVE TR is engineered to break down these bonds between the layers and thus enable more effective separation and recovery of the PET layer. Trays are used for packaging foods such as meat, cheese and fish. This inevitably means that the trays will be subject to higher levels of organic contamination. The challenge that MacDermid Enthone has faced is the demand for more robust cleaning chemistry than beverage bottles. Tray recyclers are already using TR products and the company is actively working with recycling equipment manufacturers to optimise machinery output together with the new chemistries that it has developed. Tray-to-tray recycling is no longer a hypothetical ideal; it is here, now, it is technically viable and it is commercially scalable, Laux emphasised. Bottle-to-bottle recycling In addition to their products for trays recycling, Sobrero described ADDITIVE RP 34 and RP 38 as highperformance cleaning agents for bottle-to-bottle applications. “They are high-concentration, low-foaming formulations, designed for demand- Sponsors Sebastian Laux, Global Business Development Manager Enrico Sobrero, Global Technical Manager
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