NEWS
BASF aims R&D at chemical and mechanical recycling
BASF has significant R&D capabilities in polymer chem- istry and processing, giving it one of the most extensive ranges of materials in the plastics industry. The group is now training its R&D firepow- er on finding solutions for challenges in both chemical recycling and mechanical plastics recycling. At the annual BASF Research Press Conference held online in December, the group’s plans were discussed by senior executives led by Martin Brudermüller, Chairman of the Executive Board and Chief Technology Officer. BASF has set itself some
headline goals to be achieved in a Circular Economy Program across the group’s products. It has committed to transforming 250,000 tonnes of recycled and waste-based raw materials into new products each year from 2025 and aims to double sales in solutions for the circular economy to €17bn by 2030. Brudermüller said: “This means we will continuously increase our share of recycled and renewable raw materials from sustainable sources. This also means, though, that we will need to consider recycling already at the design stage for materials. And we are working on developing or closing new product-specif- ic material cycles.” BASF has started work to
replace fossil primary feedstocks with recycled raw materials for its inte-
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Daniel Santoro, lab technician at BASF’s Application Centre for Plastic Additives in Kaisten, Switzerland, compares optical properties of recycled film with and without a stabiliser package
grated Production Verbund in its ChemCycling project. The pyrolysis oil it produces from chemical recycling waste plastics and tyres is already being used as an input in the BASF Produc- tion Verbund, he said. In addition to waste raw materials, the group is also set to increase the volume of renewable raw materials for use in its production.
Additives
BASF is also working to improve mechanical recycling of plastics. Brudermüller pointed out that only 20% of plastic waste is recycled each year. “Why is the percentage so small? For one thing, to make good recyclate, the plastic waste must be sorted into homogeneous streams
PLASTICS RECYCLING WORLD | January/February 2021
at the recycling plant. But this is not always successful and that has a negative impact on the quality of the recyclate. Moreover, the quality of the plastic deteriorates with every cycle – meaning with every processing and use phase,” he said. “Our researchers are working on developing additives that can specifi- cally stabilise recycled plastics and improve their properties. This enables plastics to be mechanically recycled multiple times and the material loops can be closed more effectively and more often.” Alice Glättli, VP Strategy and Innovation for Perfor- mance Chemicals at BASF, spoke about how the group is developing its additive products to address issues
specific to mechanically recycled plastics. “We have one of the biggest plastics additives production in the industry,” she said. It is using its R&D expertise to address two challenges in using recycled plastics: quality and purity.
Stabilisers The quality challenge concerns the degradation of a polymer that happens in manufacturing (during melt processing and from catalyst residues, for example), in its first use and in the recycling process. BASF has more than 100 thermal stabiliser and antioxidant products which restore or enhance mechanical properties of polymers. Glättli said: “In our portfolio we have all the relevant stabilisers for all the
www.plasticsrecyclingworld.com
IMAGE: BASF
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