Establishment of a research area for additive plastics recycling

Due to their properties, plastics play an important role in our modern society. The mass use of plastics leads to considerable environmental problems, as some plastic products are only used for a short time or only once. Furthermore, plastics tend to decompose into small plastic fragments over time. The plastic waste produced in this way leads to environmental pollution, for example by entering the oceans and then being absorbed by marine organisms through food.

Around 89% of all plastics produced are thermoplastics. These plastics are comparatively easy to recycle as they require pure melting of the material. However, there are also preparatory steps such as sorting by type, sorting out foreign substances, washing waste plastics or shredding large components. Therefore, a recycling cycle for the production of plastic components with additive manufacturing processes is to be set up within the framework of the project. This includes the realization of a continuous process chain, which maps both the process steps from the starting material to the end product and the steps for the recovery of recycled plastic materials from the end products. Research potentials exist on the one hand in the improvement of existing process steps of plastics recycling and on the other hand in the qualification of recycled and additive processed plastics.

Publications about the project