A new concept process for removal of odour from post consumer waste polymer - VOCex

尽管在回收更容易的聚合物流（例如在线生产废物）或通过专业闭环系统方面取得了很大进展，但回收消费后聚合物废物（主要是来自消费品（例如食品、调味汁和洗涤剂）的包装）的挑战仍然很坚韧，特别是对于聚丙烯和聚乙烯。这些聚合物强烈吸收其内容物的气味，目前需要不经济的清洁水平，然后才能回收到高价值的产品，如汽车装饰板和建筑产品。在英国的26万吨消费后聚丙烯废料中，不到1%被回收为高质量产品;其余的用于低价值应用，如埋地土工布，或填埋或焚烧。Luxus的VOCex工艺概念是一种用于汽车塑料的回收混合物，专门用于提供一种具有成本效益的方法来去除聚合物的气味，以实现更高的价值。该概念验证项目旨在验证该工艺的可行性及其科普消费后聚合物中气味化合物类型和水平变化的能力，以支持我们将其扩大到商业应用的未来目标。该技术的未来实施方案被设想为Luxus和其他现有混配商作为许可证持有者的交钥匙或改造选项，使他们能够从原本将用于填埋或焚烧的材料中提供高质量的聚合物。

Although much progress has been made in recycling the easier polymer streams such as at-line production waste, or through specialist closed loop systems, the challenge to recycle Post Consumer polymer waste (mainly packaging from consumer goods such as food, sauces and detergents) is still tough, particularly for polypropylene and polyethylene. These polymers strongly absorb odours from their contents, which currently needs uneconomic levels of cleaning before they can be recycled into high value products such as automotive fascias and building products. Of the UK’s 260,000 tonnes of post consumer polypropylene waste, under 1% is recycled into high quality products; the rest is used in low value applications such as buried geotextiles, or is landfilled or incinerated. The VOCex process concept from Luxus, a recycling compounder for automotive plastics, has been specifically created to provide a cost effective method to deodourise polymers for higher value uses. This proof of concept project is intended to validate the feasibility of the process and its ability to cope with the variability in the type and levels of odour compounds that occur in post-consumer polymer, to underpin our future objectives of scaling it up to commercial application. The future embodiment of the technology is envisaged as a turnkey or retrofit option for Luxus and other existing compounders as licencees, allowing them to provide high quality polymers from materials that would otherwise have been destined for landfill or incineration.