MATERIALS | RECYCLED MATERIALS


with a short cycle time and good surface quality. The internal material pushed out by the nitrogen is reground with the sprue and re-processed within the production cell. The gas for Airmould is generated on-site by an


N2easy nitrogen generator, which extracts nitrogen from ambient air and supplies it to the process – saving the need to bring a gas bottle to the site.


PLA recycling The EU-funded ReBioCycle project has shown that PLA can be recycled from mixed plastic waste and returned to virgin-quality material. The consortium – including Torwash and


Above: ReBioCycle has shown that PLA can be recycled from mixed plastic waste


than one thousand operating cycles, confirming its suitability for applications requiring reliability, structural stability and repeatable operation.


Sustainable clamp Wittmann says its EcoFritz clamp is a sustainable alternative to cable ties – which are used to secure media lines and cables to hoses on injection moulding machines. Unlike cable ties, the clamps can be removed


and repositioned as often as needed. They are made in three different sizes to fit all commonly used corrugated hoses. At Fakuma 2026, the company will produce


EcoFritz clamps in a live demonstration inside an Ingrinder work cell. ‘Ingrinder’ means that the machine, robot, conveyor belt and granulator for in-line recycling of sprues and production scrap are already integrated into a single unit. The housing is attached to the machine, which enables a space- saving arrangement of all process components. The equipment used to make the clamps includes a servo-hydraulic SmartPower 60, a WX90 servo parts removal device and an S Max granula- tor. Inside a two-cavity mould supplied by Röttger, a glass-fibre-reinforced polyamide is processed using the Airmould gas-injection moulding technology. The sprue is ground up directly in the production cell and mixed into the raw material – so is recycled without leaving the production cell. Internal gas pressure injection moulding also


supports high material efficiency. In the Airmould process, nitrogen is injected into the cavity with plastic melt. The pressurised gas forms a bubble inside the central area, which counteracts the shrinkage contraction on the outside to prevent sink marks. By reducing the quantity of plastic material and generating a hollow space inside the moulded part, lightweight parts can be produced


22 INJECTION WORLD | September/October 2026


TotalEnergies Corbion – confirmed that PLA can be sorted from mixed plastic waste streams using existing technologies, before being chemically broken down into lactic acid and turned back into PLA with properties equivalent to virgin material. The sorting was carried out at pilot scale, showing that recycling PLA is technically viable beyond the laboratory. The recovered material was broken down into lactic acid using Torwash’s hydrolysis technol- ogy. In the final step, TotalEnergies Corbion repoly- merised the recovered lactic acid into recycled PLA. “Showing that recycling PLA from mixed waste collection [can be converted] to new PLA is a major step in fulfilling the ambitions of the PPWR in terms of packaging recyclability,” said Maelenn Ravard, regulatory and sustainability manager at TotalEner- gies Corbion. “Achieving circularity is all about having a strong value chain and this is the strength of ReBioCycle consortium.” In future, the consortium will focus on develop- ing and validating new applications using recycled PLA, while continuing to scale the process toward full industrial deployment.


CLICK ON THE LINKS FOR MORE INFORMATION: � www.purecycle.com � www.motherson.com � www.sumikaeurope.com � www.totalenergies.com � https://hpps.daicel.com � www.mcgc.com � https://plastixglobal.com � www.alpla.com � www.erema.com � www.rondoplast.se � https://modulpac.com � www.eurotec-ep.com � www.lati.com � www.wittmann-group.com � www.rebiocycle.eu � www.totalenergies-corbion.com


www.injectionworld.com


IMAGE: JAN PELS, TORWASH


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