INNOVATION | WEEE
Tomra tackles separation of BFR plastics
Tomra Sorting Recycling gave a presentation at the International Electronics Recycling Congress in Salzburg, Austria, saying that its technologies are able to remove up to 98% of plastics containing brominat- ed flame retardants (BFRs) from mixed plastic waste streams. Judit Jansana, Head of Tomra
Sorting Iberia, said: “Now that plastics waste can no longer be shipped to China and simply forgotten about, there is growing demand from
recyclers for pre-separated polymers that are BFR-free.” Tomra’s presentation noted that electrical and electronic devices contain anything from 3% to 60% plastic, and among that approximately 30% of plastics contain flame retard- ants. BFR-containing materials can be removed by recyclers using a combina- tion of two sorting machines: Autosort, which sorts using near infrared technology to separate the input of mixed polymers; Tomra’s X-Tract
of E&E and automotive products,” said PRE. Against this backdrop of regulation and market development, progress is being made by research projects tackling the technical challenges of WEEE recycling, and by plastics recyclers striving to develop their WEEE businesses. The four-year CloseWEEE multi-partner project held its final workshop in November 2018. The project developed mechanical and solvent-based plastic recovery and compounding processes to recover high quality ABS and PC/ABS from small domestic appliances (SDA) and ICT equipment. Processing included density separation and spectroscopic sorting in the mechanical recycling part. The solvent-based CreaSolv process was also used. Compounding with impact and gloss modifying agents improved properties to meet OEM specifications. Results were presented at the workshop by project partners Fraunhofer Institute IVV, Tecnalia, Sitraplas and Coolrec Plastics. “All in all, both process cascades managed to
Right: Arthur Schwesig, head of the R&D department at MGG Polymers, which has started recycling PC/ ABS from
post-consumer WEEE
machine, with X-Ray technology, can then be used on the sorted polymer streams to separate BFR polymers from BFR-free polymers – flame-retardant elements have higher atomic densities which absorb more energy. As an alternative way of reducing
bromine, it is also possible to start the process with a straight pass through Tomra X-Tract to achieve an output of less than 1,000 ppm, leaving a mix free of BFR for further polymer separation. �
www.tomra.com
reduce the amount of residual plastics, increased the yield of high quality recycled polymers and thus the quota of circular economy and to save cost for the safe thermal disposal of residual materials,” said the CloseWEEE partners in their paper. The results showed recycled ABS to have BFRs
at concentrations below levels of concern. Sepa- rately, Fraunhofer Institute IVV and Argus Additive Plastics showed that the CreaSolv process could extract antimony trioxide from polymers of waste TV and monitor casings. A powder with 66% antimony trioxide content was obtained and used in a trial replacing virgin antimony trioxide in flame retarded vapor barrier LDPE films, leading to positive results.
As well as demonstrating the technical feasibility
of using the CreaSolv process to recycle ABS, a key finding of the CloseWEEE project was that current mechanical recycling technologies can achieve high levels in recycled polymer quality, on condi- tion that proper recompounding is also carried out. The PolyCE project is another EU-funded
project in WEEE plastics recycling, involving some of the same partners from CloseWEEE, along with brand owners such as Philips and Whirlpool. Over the course of four years, PolyCE (denoting Post- Consumer High-tech Recycled Polymers for a Circular Economy) aims to reduce the use of virgin plastics and enhance the use of recycled plastics in new electronics applications. The project’s specific goals in WEEE recycling are: n Demonstrate the feasibility of a circular model for the plastics supply and value chain.
n Develop a grading system for recycled plastics, which will ultimately serve to provide guidelines for designing new electronic products.
n Involve green public procurement initiatives and consumer awareness raising campaigns across
46 PLASTICS RECYCLING WORLD | March/April 2019
www.plasticsrecyclingworld.com
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