Upcycling for Valuable Plastics from Old Refrigerators
- Top-Meldungen
- Forschung
A consortium from nine European countries wants in future to upcycle valuable plastic waste: In the “Circular Foam” project, old refrigerators or façade elements containing high-grade plastics are to be converted into new raw materials for the chemical industry. Among the 22 partners from research and industry involved are Professor Sebastian Engell, Professor for Process Dynamics and Operations at the Department of Biochemical and Chemical Engineering of TU Dortmund University, and his team. Professor Engell was involved in planning the project and will lead a work package.
If Europe wants to become the world’s first climate-neutral continent by 2050, it will be necessary, among other things, to develop innovative recycling solutions. This is where the new project comes in: The consortium will develop a concept that shows how waste containing high-grade plastics can be converted into valuable products. Specifically, this involves rigid polyurethane (PU) foams from insulation in refrigerators and building components, which are to be converted into raw materials for PU production in a resource-friendly way. Here, the aim is to use processes such as chemolysis and intelligent pyrolysis. The consortium will examine the entire material flow chain – from the collection of the waste to its sorting, separation and treatment, to further chemical processing and feeding into existing production processes.
Integrated system analysis and overall system design
“We will pursue a regional approach and develop this first of all for the Cologne-Aachen and Amsterdam regions as examples,” says Professor Sebastian Engell. “The results can then be transferred to other European regions.” Professor Engell will lead the work package “Integrated System Analysis and Overall System Design”, in which the various elements of the processing chain will be modelled, simulated and optimally aligned with each other using an integrated approach.
The “Circular Foam” project was selected by the European Commission in the framework of the Green Deal calls for proposals and is being funded by the EU’s Horizon 2020 program. A total of around € 19 million will be allocated to the project over a period of four years, of which € 760,000 will go to the Department of Biochemical and Chemical Engineering at TU Dortmund University. The international consortium is headed by Covestro AG in Leverkusen.
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