REINFORCEMENT | ADDITIVES
developed a proof-of-concept recycling process that transforms post-industrial waste filtration media into glass fibre-filled compounds. JM’s Engineered Products division supplies a range of filtration products, including HVAC (heating, ventilating, air conditioning) filtration media, as well as nonwovens (eg fibreglass mat) and reinforcing fibres, including chopped fibreglass for polyolefins and polyamides and roving for long-fibre thermo- plastics, structural thermoplastics, and thermosets. JM’s Evalith HVAC filtration media comprises 40-60% glass microfibre overlaid on a PET backer. The post-industrial waste material can originate from JM manufacturing scraps from its production site in Wertheim, Germany, and trim waste from HVAC filter manufacturers. “Instead of landfilling or incinerating this waste, it can be compounded with PET (or rPET) or ABS polymers to create pellets for durable injection moulding applications,” said Christian Hassmann, Business Director Filtration & Separation at JM. The group won the Filtrex Innovation Award 2025 in March for this approach, which could prevent hundreds of tonnes of filtration media waste from entering landfills or being incinerated and instead create value-added products, contributing to a circular economy, the company said.
Filtration waste The recycling process has been successfully demonstrated at an industrial scale. Without any precutting, the waste material is directly fed into a PureLoop ISECevo recycling machine – an integrat- ed shredder extruder system – where virgin polymer is added to compound pellets containing significant quantities of glass fibre. This process is intentionally designed to use minimal or no preprocessing and offers end-use versatility. The compounded pellets can be injection moulded into durable, non-structural components or tools. Mechanical testing at JM’s Technical Center in
Littleton, CO, in the US, confirmed that the recycled material exhibits reinforcing behaviour due to the micro fibreglass. The resulting pellets show
improved mechanical properties compared to unreinforced polymers. “The full-scale potential depends on the volume
of waste collected from filter manufacturers,” said Martin Kleinebrecht, Marketing Leader Engineered Products at JM. “Moreover, if JM and current or future partners can successfully develop a process to recycle used filters, potentially including their plastic frames, the available volume for compound- ing would increase significantly.” Japan-headquartered Polyplastics, part of Daicel Group, manufactures several types of engineering plastics. The company recently announced that it plans to use a post-industrial recycling (PIR) system to collect glass-reinforced PPS scrap from its customers, which the company will use to make a 40% glass-reinforced grade of its Durafide rG-PPS. The product is anticipated to launch by the end of 2025; development has been completed and the product is in the sampling phase. The project was started in response to the company’s customers desire for recycled materials for applications such as automotive and appliances. “In initial processes, strict acceptance inspec- tions will be conducted and metal will be removed. In later processes, recycled materials and some virgin materials will be reformulated to meet target specifications,” the company said. “The open PIR scheme will help customers reduce and effectively
Mechanical testing of recycled GF filtration media Property
Tensile Strength (ISO 527-2) Flexural Strength (ISO 178) Charpy Impact (ISO 179-1) Young’s Modulus
Melt Flow Index (MFI) (ISO 1133) Glass Content
Source: Johns Manville
www.compoundingworld.com June 2025 | COMPOUNDING WORLD 29
Unreinforced rPET 45 - 55 MPa 80 - 90 MPa 20 - 25 kJ/m²
2,000 - 2,400 MPa 90 - 100 g/10min -
Above: Micro fibre- glass media production at Johns Manville
Waste Filtration Media + rPET 70 - 80 MPa
100 - 120 MPa 15 - 20 kJ/m²
5,500 - 6,200 MPa 70 - 80 g/10min 27 - 28%
IMAGE: JOHNS MANVILLE
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