UK awards €1m grant to study odour-contaminated plastic waste

Innovate UK has awarded a £840,000 (€970,000) grant to a consortium of UK companies and institutions to develop a novel process to remove odour from post-consumer recycled plastics.
 
The 30-month R&D project, knowns as Odour Control, will employ “unique process technologies” to deliver second life applications for odour-contaminated plastics, said plastics recycling specialist and member of the consortium, Luxus.
 
Luxus will lead the project in collaboration with the University of Lincoln, to providing a ‘test house’ to identify and quantify odour species.
 
Another consortium member, Matrix Moulding Systems, will develop the processing system design, while injection moulding company One 51, will produce the finished parts.
 
Recycled plastics which have been in contact with heavily perfumed detergents or food have a ‘scent memory’, which creates quality issues inhibiting further use for the recycled materials.
 
The research will look into “removing retained odour” so the waste polymer can be reprocessed for use in high value products, such as civil engineering and automotive.
 
This project aims to create a prototype of the process, so Luxus technicians can gain an improved understanding of how to cope with the variability in the type and levels of odour compounds that occur in post-consumer polymer.
 
Once proven, the process will provide a retrofit solution that requires minimal equipment modifications, said Luxus, adding that technical plastics compounders can license the technology if interested.
 
The project will particularly address the recycling of post-consumer polypropylene (PP) and polyethylene (PE), which currently present a major challenge.
 
According to Luxus, today, under 1% of the UK’s 260,000 tonnes of post-consumer PP waste is effectively recycled into high quality products and the rest is used in lower value applications or landfilled. 
 
“We are pleased that Innovate UK has recognised the importance of developing a process that will allow for the cost-efficient reprocessing of polymer that was previously uneconomic to recover due to retained odour,” said Luxus project manager, Chris Kerridge.