Aimplas, the Technological Institute of Plastics located in Valencia, Spain, has announced it is working with fellow Spanish company Barpimo on the development of new alkyd and polyester resins from multilayer PET package wastes.
The organisation highlights that before now multilayer PET package waste would end up in landfills due to the expensive treatment cost.
Elisa Cones, an Aimplas spokesperson, told PNE that the project known as Resipet has funding of €522,444 and Aimplas has a budget of €159,223. “The project started last July and will finish on December 2017,” Cones added.
Resipet is co-funded by the Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness and the FEDER funds within the National Programme for Research. Aimplas states that research tasks, carried out by Barpimo and itself, aim to create a new process that enables multilayer PET packaging wastes to be transformed into thermosetting resins at an industrial level, competitive cost and with a low environmental impact.
Aimplas says the expected result is to produce two different type of products from the waste. Firstly alkyd resins, used to manufacture enamels and coatings for materials such as metal and wood, and secondly polyester resins that can be used in sectors, such as construction, as pipes or reinforced composites with glass fibre.