Luxus and Polykemi win EU grant for NIR friendly black alternative
Luxus has secured a £1.29m (€1.47m) investment, from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme, in a consortium with fellow Nordic polymer processing partner, Polykemi and global plastics manufacturer One51.
The funding supports NIRSort, a commercialisation project that aims to replace carbon black and many other pigments with a range of near-infrared (NIR) detectable alternatives for use by packaging, automotive and consumer durables manufacturers.
Each year 3.5 million tonnes of polymer are scrapped in the UK alone, since black and some other coloured packaging cannot be picked up by recycling sorters. As these products contain carbon black that reflects very little or no radiation rendering it ‘invisible’ to sorting machines in recycling depots.
This two year project will be led by Luxus in collaboration with global processor Polykemi. Polykemi will participate by formulating, processing and testing materials. The resulting materials will be then further evaluated for use in innovative packaging material via Polykemis subsidiary Scanfill.
The third consortium partner is rigid plastics manufacturer, One51, selected for its injection moulding manufacturing expertise.
Christel Croft, Technical Director at Luxus, said: “This pioneering project is based on the previous successful work to identify NIR detectable alternatives to carbon black from specialist additive and masterbatch supplier, Colour Tone, whom Luxus acquired earlier this year.
"It aims to develop a range of colourants for polymers that will enable NIR sorting operations to segregate black and coloured plastics from waste streams to a level of purity that they are useable in highly engineered polymers. Potentially even in our light-weight, high scratch-resistant polypropylene (PP) compounds range, Hycolene for example...
“We have defined a programme of development, designed to identify formulations with optimal cost effectiveness in packaging recycling and to extend the technology across to WEEE and end-of-life vehicle applications, each of which has its own specialist requirements.”
The most immediate market need is for food packaging, which typically has a three to 12 month cycle from ‘make-to-waste’. While waste from consumer durables goods (WEEE) however, has a mean-life of five years and ‘end-of-life’ automotive vehicles (ELV) 13 years, both also require solutions to prevent the continued build-up of potentially unrecoverable polymers.
Croft added: “Our market strategy is based therefore, on a continuous positive development cycle or a ‘circular economy’ approach. This is where the packaging industry will use virgin detectable polymer to make its packaging and this with its product life of under a year, is recycled into high quality engineered plastics for the manufacturer of automotive and consumer durables to use - without waiting for returns from their own ‘end-of-life’ materials.”