Plastics are versatile, lightweight, and fundamental to countless products, but plastic waste poses a growing environmental threat. The plastics industry are confronting sustainability demands from consumers, brand owners, and regulations with bold innovation in material design and recycling. The leading technologies and areas of exploration in polymer sustainability are mechanical recycling, advanced recycling, biobased polymers, and new designs for polymers.
Mechanical recycling is the dominant technology today, but it is not fully capable of tackling the variability and contamination in the plastics waste stream. The process begins with collecting and sorting material to be recycled and grinding the material into flakes after cleaning. Finally, the recycled flakes are reprocessed into pellets to meet the end-use specification. One challenge with mechanical recycling is its ability to handle waste streams that are contaminated with different polymers.
While the technology to improve mechanical recycling is advancing, consistently producing high-quality recycled plastics is difficult with contaminated plastic waste. Compatibilizers are molecules that stabilize immiscible polymer mixtures by reducing the interfacial tension between the two polymers. This enhances the processability and mechanical properties of the mixture and offers a pathway for successful mechanical recycling with mixed waste streams.
Join us in this first part of the panel discussion series focused on sustainable polymers, where Professor Chris Ellison from the University of Minnesota, Dr. Scott Trenor, Principal Scientist at Milliken and Company and Dr. Robert Sherman, Technical Director, Baerlocher USA explore the benefits and innovation in using compatibilizers for mechanical recycling.
