MATERIALS | COLOURS AND MASTERBATCH
IMAGE: LYONDELLBASELL
Above: Colour samples of QCP recycled materials from LyondellBasell
contamination, meaning that colour tints are required to improve the visual appearance. The requirement to achieve consistent and
vibrant colours using a range of recyclate quality needs an understanding of colour travel as the quality and quantity of recyclate changes, Vallespí Salvadó adds. Developing colours with greater tolerance or less colour travel when used with recyclate is required, as well as utilising multi-layer technology to develop colours for enhancement and effects. The company says that it is also combining colour with additive and polymer technology to address processing challenges with recycled polymer. This will improve thermal stability to reduce yellowing, gel formation and maintaining melt flow index. Combining colour with additive and polymer technology in a single masterbatch can also provide easily dosed solutions to improve processing and mechanical performance when using recyclate with high moisture or volatiles content and contamination from mixed polymer recyclate.
Sandrine Reboux, Senior Marketing Manager,
Above: Sandrine Reboux, Senior Marketing Manager, Personal Care & Home Care Products at Avient
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Personal Care & Home Care Products at Avient, says market needs for colour in plastics recycling are focused on the desire from brand owners to develop beautiful and differentiated products that consumers want to buy while remaining circular. “This includes products that are detectable at a sorting facility and contain a high level of PCR resin,” she says. “Brand owners want to have the ability to anticipate the impact colour will have on a final product when using a high level of recycled content while also maintaining the integrity of the product, as recycling multiple times can increase the risk of polymer degradation.” Reboux says: “We are also seeing two main trends driving new developments in colours and
PLASTICS RECYCLING WORLD | November/December 2022
pigments for plastics recycling: digitalisation and a focus on health. Digitalisation is not a new trend but has been accelerated by the pandemic in that brands are changing how they attract consumer interest during online shopping through colours. Opaques are moving to transparent, bright, and crispy colours in recycled PET resin to increase premiumisation on the digital screen. We are also seeing more consumers asking if a product is healthy and good for them or not. Colour trends are inspired by spa and wellness centres with popular tones such as frost, pastels and natural shades. Plus, packaging may be smaller to facilitate convenience and an ‘on-the-go’ lifestyle.” Reboux adds that there are also specific prob-
lems requiring new solutions in colouring technol- ogy for plastics recycling. For example, in packag- ing applications, PCR resin undertone and opacity restrict colour options in rPET, rPE and rPP, compro- mising the final rendering. This problem creates a high demand for the lightest colour of recycled materials for all applications, limiting market availability. Also, colouring darker PCR grades can increase complexity and possibly impact brand equity.
Speeding up time to market and global colour consistency are the main technical areas of interest being addressed at Avient currently when working with PCR. Avient’s PCR Color Prediction service can help, says Reboux. The company is now promoting the service on a broader scale to support premium customers in packaging applications and the consumer market. PCR Color Prediction Service is a premium service created to help frame the available colour space based on the PCR characteristics, including opacity and undertone. “With this service, we can digitally illustrate if a new colour will be achievable in a given PCR resin before laboratory trials,” says Reboux. “Overall, this helps speed up the time to market by reducing the number of colour trials needed when formulating a colour. The service helps to anticipate the colour impact on backup resin options limiting trials at moulders and increas- ing flexibility in case of sourcing disruptions or short- ages. Applications for the service include mono- layer bottles, injection stretch blow moulding (ISBM) or extrusion blow moulding (EBM), and injection moulding. The focus resin is rPET, rPE or rPP.” In addition, Avient has developed Cesa Nox A4R
for recycling, which is a specialised antioxidant additive that stabilises polyolefins during process- ing, preventing typical defects like discolouration, gels and black spots during initial and future conversion steps and recycling loops.
www.plasticsrecyclingworld.com
IMAGE: AVIENT
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