European legislation is pushing plastic processors to increasingly use recycled plastics in demanding applications such as automotive parts or electrical and electronic equipment (EEE).
Whilst the use of recycled plastic is already established in some applications, e.g. in the PET bottle sector, its use in demanding applications is still very limited. According to Plastics Europe, only 2% of recyclates currently end up in electrical and electronic equipment (EEE), for example.
One of the key challenges in using recyclates in technical products is maintaining consistent quality in injected moulded parts, due to batch fluctuations and variation in material properties.
Now, Avidens, a new partnership between sensorics and AI company SensXpert, polymer processing and engineering company Schwarz Plastic Solutions, material and laboratory analytics company Netzsch, and mould maker Precupa, has developed sensor technology to address this challenge.
Avidens leverages sensor technology and artificial intelligence (AI) for assisted processing of recycled polymers. The issue with current technologies, the new company told Sustainable Plastics, is that they cannot see or interfere with the moulding process once the material leaves the nozzle and enters the mould. Neither can they adjust the process when the quality inside the bag varies from shot to shot.
The new collaboration, on the other hand, has developed dielectric analysis (DEA) sensors for in-line detection of anomalies inside the moulding process. This allows processors to take a peek inside the moulding process and analyse the behaviour of recyclate.
Dielectric analysis monitors changes in viscosity and the cure state of polymers by measuring variations in their dielectric properties, including degree of cure, gel-point, flow behaviour, reactivity, diffusion, and glass transition. Integrated into the mould, dielectric sensors measure crucial material properties to monitor and predict part quality.
“The complete picture and behaviour around viscosity and plastification are monitored and collected during every shot,” an Aviden’s spokesperson told Sustainable Plastics. “Later this data is processed with the help of artificial intelligence and compared to pre-collected datasets, which will allow a direct live in-line feedback to the machine to adjust parameters according to the observed anomalies.”
The partners will present the first use cases to the industry at Fakuma, taking place between Oct. 15 to 19, 2024.