Farrel has been monitoring lab trials in its laboratories in the UK and in the US and has seen ‘far more’ trials oriented towards recycling in the US than in Europe. That is partly explained by the fact that Europe is a more developed and therefore more stable market, Llyod commented, but nevertheless the rate of innovation in the US is outpacing the old continent.
“Around 70% of the lab trials we do now [in the US] either relates to biopolymers or recycling, which if you compare that to six years ago it was probably less than 20%.”
The time for investing in machinery for recycling applications is now, Lloyd argued.
“[Progress in the US] is not just relying upon regulations as you see in Europe, now there's real opportunity in the recycling market and there's been a real shift in the philosophies of US companies towards opportunities in processing recycled materials. That has allowed capital flow into those kinds of projects which has produced, in terms of rate change [if not final position], more progress in recycling in the US at this moment [than in Europe],” he concluded.
A compounder for mechanical and chemical recycling
Farrel has made ‘significant’ changes to its compounder to adapt it for recycling applications.
“The machine was originally designed for feeding pellets around 3 mm of diameter that very easily fall into the machine. The recycling material we see is usually larger than that,” Lloyd explained.
The company put a lot of emphasis on developing the front end of the machine to face this challenge. Llyoid pointed to the large single-entry feed port to handle irregularly sized feedstocks and large amounts of additives and fillers; nonintermeshing, counter rotating rotors and a large free volume mixing chamber that can tolerate the often abrasive nature of recycled materials.
For mechanical recycling, irregularly shaped material is fed from a large hopper with crammer options for low bulk density feeding. Excellent temperature control is achieved, in part, by unique rotor geometry and process parameters like adjustable dams, orifice position, and rotor cooling.
For the chemical recycling process, the continuous mixer is used in the primary stage of the pyrolysis process to heat and melt plastic or rubber. Farrel partners with Texas-based Lummus technology for the chemical recycling of plastic, and with WF Recycle Tech in the UK for pyrolysis of end-of-life tires.
For plastics chemical recycling, the compounder effectively works as ‘pre compounder for further recycling’. The input is mostly film scrap, alongside some solid materials to adjust bulk density.
No special steps are needed to avoid contaminants, Lloyd said. The material goes through a general sorting, cleaning, and granulating process before it reaches the compounder, which ‘deals quite well with the occasional piece of debris, even the small amount of steel will not damage the machine’, Lloyd noted.
NPE launch
The continuous mixer for chemical recycling of plastics is being launched at NPE. It is now available for full commercialization around the world through technology licensing partnership with Lummus.
“We expect a high level of interest. We are hopeful to stimulate two or three projects from the show,” Lloyd revealed.
Sales for mechanical recycling applications are expected to be ‘significantly higher’, Lloyd said, with interest from both seasoned and new players in the industry.
