WEEE AND ELV | INNOVATION


Halogen-free FR recyclate partnership


In February, Clariant announced that it had teamed up with Lavergne, a world leader in the produc- tion of sustainable engineer- ing resin from recycled plastic, to develop halogen- free flame-retardant polyes- ter compounds made from ocean-bound plastics. “With the first grade already commercialised, the advance is supporting demand from major electri- cal and electronics brand owners for flame retarded post-consumer recyclate grades for equipment parts,” said the company in a statement. Clariant says the close collaboration between the two companies to develop halogen-free flame-retardant versions of Laverne’s recycled polyes- ter grades arises from the company’s wider mission to create new uses for plastic PET in this case – recycled from


already successfully passed moulding trials at part manufacturers and is commercially available,” Clariant says.


Laptop computers are a typical end application for Lavergne’s VyPET OBP compounds using Clariant’s Exolit OP flame retardants


ocean-bound waste streams. The first new flame-retardant compound Lavergne VyPET OBP-FR has 30% glass fibre reinforcement and UL 94 V-0 flame rating at 0.8 mm thickness, which makes it suitable for many E&E applications. “This fully recyclable OBP-based compound has


machines remove up to 98% of plastics containing brominated flame retardants, using near infrared and X-ray technologies. X-ray technology in X-Tract can separate BFR-containing polymers from BFR-free polymers because flame-retardant elements have higher atomic densities, which absorb more energy. This technology is independ- ent of the colour of the input plastics, meaning black plastic is not an issue. The EU-sponsored three-year Nontox project, which began in June 2019, is aimed at increasing the recycling rates for waste streams containing hazardous plastics, which are currently incinerated and/or landfilled due to the absence of techno- economical recycling solutions and established value chains. The project targets hazardous plastics generated by the treatment of WEEE, ELVs, and also Construction and Demolition Waste (CDW) streams. Nontox is developing two different technolo-


gies, Extruclean and CreaSolv, to remove hazard- ous substances from plastics waste streams. It is also investigating the thermochemical conversion of non-target plastics and side streams.


www.plasticsrecyclingworld.com


“Intensive liaison and development work was required by Lavergne’s and Clariant’s experts to develop the right flame retardant and synergist formulation for this particular resin grade and also optimise the processing conditions of the com- pound,” says Clariant. “In fact, mechanical properties of OBP recyclates pose specific challenges because


the repeated thermal treatment of polymers tends to progressively degrade the material. Because of the original compound’s success, the solution has now been extended to more than a dozen product lines, with each program undergoing additional testing prior to commercialisation.”


The project is being coordinated by VTT


Technical Research Centre of Finland. Muhammad Saad Qureshi, Senior Scientist, Sustainable Fuels/ Circular Economy, told Plastics Recycling World in late June: “Nontox has just passed the one-year mark. Until now, we have been able to: n map the relevant material flows for WEEE, ELV and CDW in Europe and provide a rough estimation of volumes available for being processed by the Nontox technologies;


n collect volumes of mixed plastics from the three different streams and provide a detailed characterisation (composition in terms of polymers, concentration of hazardous substanc- es etc.);


n define the input material of each technology; n set up the recycling of samples of plastics at lab-scale;


n characterise the input material of the thermo- chemical conversion process;


n identify the technical specification of plastics required by manufacturers and define solutions for upgrading material properties;


n define the goal and scope of life cycle assess- � July/August 2020 | PLASTICS RECYCLING WORLD 37


IMAGE: CLARIANT


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