PET Day sparks international interest

PET Day sparks international interest
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More than 117 representatives of the plastics industry from 24 countries gathered for a demonstration of the new Liquid State Polycondensation (LSP) method of PET recycling developed by Austrian-based Next Generation Recycling Machines (NGR). The demonstration took place Nov. 8.

In cooperation with German-based Kuhne Group, NGR says it has developed an “innovative“ recycling process for polyethylene terephthalate (PET) that opens up “new possibilities for the plastics industry.“

“The fact that representatives of the world’s largest plastics companies joined us in Feldkirchen shows that with the Liquid State Polycondensation we at NGR have developed an innovation that will help to get the worldwide problem of plastic waste under control,” says NGR CEO Josef Hochreiter.

PET is a thermoplastic that is widely used in beverage bottles and numerous other food contact applications, as well as in the manufacture of textiles. Previous methods of recycling PET back to near-virgin quality have shown limitations, NGR says.

In the LSP process, achieving food grade standards, decontamination and rebuilding of the molecular chain structure takes place in the liquid phase of PET recycling. The process allows for “lower scrap streams“ to be recycled to“higher value recycling products.”

NGR says the process provides controlled mechanical properties of the recycled PET. LSP can be used to process co-polymer forms of PET and polyolefin contents, as well as PET and PE compounds, which “was not possible with conventional recycling processes.”

At the demonstration, melt passed through the LSP reactor and was processed to FDA approved film. The films are mainly used for thermoforming applications, NGR says.

“Our customers worldwide now have an energy-efficient, alternative solution in order to produce highly-sophisticated packaging films out of PET with originally bad physical properties,“ says Rainer Bobowk, division manager at Kuhne Group.

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Source: Recycling Today
PET Day sparks international interest
<![CDATA[More than 117 representatives of the plastics industry from 24 countries gathered for a demonstration of the new Liquid State Polycondensation (LSP) method of PET recycling developed by Austrian-based Next Generation Recycling Machines (NGR). The demonstration took place Nov. 8.In cooperation with German-based Kuhne Group, NGR says it has developed an “innovative“ recycling process for polyethylene terephthalate (PET) that opens up “new possibilities for the plastics industry.“”The fact that representatives of the world’s largest plastics companies joined us in Feldkirchen shows that with the Liquid State Polycondensation we at NGR have developed an innovation that will help to get the worldwide problem of plastic waste under control,” says NGR CEO Josef Hochreiter.PET is a thermoplastic that is widely used in beverage bottles and numerous other food contact applications, as well as in the manufacture of textiles. Previous methods of recycling PET back to near-virgin quality have shown limitations, NGR says.In the LSP process, achieving food grade standards, decontamination and rebuilding of the molecular chain structure takes place in the liquid phase of PET recycling. The process allows for “lower scrap streams“ to be recycled to“higher value recycling products.”NGR says the process provides controlled mechanical properties of the recycled PET. LSP can…