The Circular Plastics programme in the Netherlands has granted €6 million to 10 projects involving collaboration between academia and industry.
The programme started in 2023 and is part of the second round of the National Growth Fund, an initiative of the Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs and Climate Policy and the Ministry of Finance.
Companies contribute at least 10% of the total project size per project as co-financing. Each project will last a maximum of five years and will focus in one of three themes: design of circular plastics; new characterisation, sorting and washing techniques; and new recycling techniques. Researchers will focus on early development of ideas with the potential for large-scale applications.
In one project, Sabic will partner with the University of Maastricht to develop new single-molecule flame retardants (FR) such as phosphorus-sulphur materials for PP. The consortium promises to offer a systematic, interdisciplinary approach to the degradation, processing and recycling of PP/FR plastics to provide a scientific basis for developing new PP/FR materials and increasing the quantity and quality of recyclate.
Another Maastricht project involves Basell Polyolefin, BASF Chemetall, Danone S.A., The Kraft Heinz Company, as well as Maastricht University and Ghent University. The partners aim to systematically analyse and improve mechanical recycling technologies for closed-loop recycling of polyolefin-based food packaging.
The third project based at Maastricht University will pioneer a new approach to making widespread epoxy-amine networks, used in wind turbine blades, for example, recyclable.
Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, the University of Groningen, Utrecht University, TNO Eindhoven, and the University of Twente also received funding to make plastics circular.
Carboliq and Coperion are partnering with Utrecht University, as well as Ruhr University and Maastricht University, to investigate catalytic extrusion. The interdisciplinary consortium of polymer, catalysis, pyrolysis, extrusion and process evaluation experts will attempt to lower process temperatures for chemical transformation by using mechanical forces in an extruder in combination with catalysis. They expect this will achieve better control over the transformations and produce chemicals such as the building blocks for new plastics.
Borealis is collaborating with the University of Twente, TNO, and Cargill Bioindustrial to develop recyclable sealing for high-barrier mono-material flexible packaging films.
Finally, Plastics Europe is part of a consortium with TNO Eindhoven to develop a tool to measure the properties required for qualifying plastics in a faster way on smaller plastic samples.