UT research has started to make plastics circular
(Illustratie UTwente)
July 15, 2024 – Currently, fifteen percent of the one million tons of discarded plastics in the Netherlands annually are recycled at high quality. The goal is for fifty percent of all plastics to be recycled by 2030, with production becoming completely circular by 2050. What technical innovations can be used to ensure that plastics are reused more often? This is explored in Making Plastics Circular: Technical Innovations. Six million euros have been distributed by NWO across ten projects. All investigations will last five years. The UT research of Prof. Roland ten Klooster (Faculty of ET) contributes to making plastics circular with the aim of optimizing the recycling of packaging.
To protect food against the effects of oxygen and/or moisture, materials have been developed that consist of multiple layers, such as a layer for sealing, a carrier layer, and a barrier against oxygen. These combined materials are often difficult to separate and cannot be recycled properly. Layers made from a single material type with well-matched barrier properties can solve this problem. However, such mono-materials can stick to the sealing tools because the layers have similar melting properties. Other sealing methods are therefore necessary. This project aims to achieve recyclable and sealable mono-materials that have a high barrier against gases and moisture.
Ten Klooster’s project is called Design for Recycling and Effective/Secure Sealing of High-Barrier Mono-Material Flexible Packaging Films. The consortium consists of Borealis, Cargill Bioindustrial, TNO, and the University of Twente.
