ODOUR AND EMISSIONS | RESEARCH
Right: James Vincent, Technical Lead for the Odour Control project at Luxus, works on a modified compounding line set up to support the deodorising process
development
taking care that emissions comply with the require- ments of air quality inside the vehicle established by the vehicle manufacturers. During the project, Aimplas says it improved the
devolatilisation process in the twin screw extrusion process by adding different percentages of water. “The optimisation of the processing conditions combined with the screw profile modification makes the difference to reduce volatile contents and hence odours,” Roca says. To determine the efficiency of recycling and pos-
sibility of reuse in car interior parts decontaminated post-consumer PP materials supplied by two different recyclers (rPP1 and rPP2) were analysed in accordance with three automotive standards: VDA 277 (to determine the total content of VOCs), VDA 278 (to determine VOCs and SVOCs by thermal desorption), and VDA 270 (to determine the intensity of the odour emitted by the materials). In the VDA 277 tests, the initial concentration of
volatiles for the two samples were measured at 124 and 80 µg/g respectively; after devolatilisation this was reduced to 2.97 and 0.83 µg/g. The VDA 278 tests showed the rPP1 resin had initial VOC and fog contents of 88 and 252 mg/g and rPP2 57 mg/g and 166 mg/g. After decontamination, rPP1 values dropped to 7.1 and 38 mg/g respectively, and rPP2 to 9.5 and 49 mg/g. Odour intensity tests (VDA 270), showed the rating in rPP1 dropped from 4 to 3 after devolatilisation and rPP2 fell from 4.5 to 3.5. The VDA 277 decontamination rates of 97.6% and 98.8 for the rPP1 and rPP2 resins resteively, together with the good VDA 278 and VDA 270 results, demonstrate high potential of for this process as a decontamination methodology, according to Roca.
Compound opportunity The use of PCR plastics in demanding automotive applications has also been under investigation at UK-based compounder Luxus, for which automo- tive is a major market. The company, which is a long-established producer of technical compounds containing recycled content, estimates the ability to remove odours from otherwise unusable PCR plastics could divert 25,000 tonnes of waste from landfill or incineration in the UK annually. The net saving in CO2
emissions could be around one
tonne per tonne of polymer recovered, it says. Luxus is nearing the end of a 33-month Innovate
UK-funded R&D project — Odour Control — that aimed to develop validated prototype processes to provide cost-effective methods for identifying odour and deodorising recycled polymer. Manag- ing Director Peter Atterby says the company and its project partners have developed “two or three”
68 COMPOUNDING WORLD | March 2022
technologies that can be implemented at different parts of the production process to purge odours from waste materials. The project was managed by Luxus in collabora- tion with the University of Lincoln, which carried out the testing and identified and quantified the VOCs most likely responsible for the odours. Consortium partner Matrix Moulding Systems developed the processing system in conjunction with Luxus, while processor IPL Plastics performed injection moulding trials on experimental materials from the deodorising process. “We have been able to identify and quantify a significant amount of the VOCs that are responsi- ble for the odours in various recycling waste streams,” says Atterby. “We may in future be able to be more precise about how odour is measured and make it less subjective.” James Vincent, Technical Lead for the project at the company, says: “Gas chromatography can yield hundreds of volatiles from a single piece of plastic. For any source of material, we are identifying up to around five different VOCs that seem to be working in combination with each other to produce the odour. We are using this information to be able to remove the VOCs in question.” The intention is for the technology to be adopt-
ed as a retrofit option at Luxus and for other UK plastics compounders under a licensing process.
CLICK ON THE LINKS FOR MORE INFORMATION: �
www.aimplas.net �
www.luxus.co.uk
www.compoundingworld.com
IMAGE: LUXUS
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