Presentation
Activated Carbon - An old-new cleaning method for the plastic lifecycle
Time & Location
Wednesday: 15.30 to 15.45, Stage 2
Speaker
Dr Dirk ReichertBusiness Development Manager - Desotec
About this presentation
At the end of the plastic use phase, there is a trade-off between the cost for collecting/ washing/ sorting into relatively pure material streams and recycling technologies which can directly cope with complex feeds. For recycling of for example multilayer foils or textile products, more sophisticated recycling technologies like depolymerisation, solvolysis or thermal/ pyrolytic processes are needed. However, foreign material brought in with the waste plastic stream like wrong-throws, additives, dyes etc. reduce the product quality. As alternative to standard purification methods in the petrochemical industry like distillation, hydrotreatment etc., the purification with activated carbon is presented. We show significant color (and therefore pollutant) reduction in recycled products through pyrolysis and depolymerisation of post-consumer/ -industrial plastic waste. 99% color (pollutant) reduction was proven in solvent-based recycling of dark textile waste. 40% and more reduction of both nitrogen- and oxygen-compounds was achieved for the oil of nitrogen-containing post-industrial waste pyrolysis. An operating model for continuous product stream purification is presented based on mobile filters. With mobile filters of different activated carbon volumes, the cleaning step can always be sized optimal and most efficiently to the recycling plant size – ideal for the ramp up phase of new technologies/ industries.
Speaker Bio:
Dirk Reichert, Dr. Dipl.-Chem. 2007 from Karlsruhe University, Germany. Research at Sydney University, Australia, and Freiberg University, Germany until 2013. Engineering & Development Management (EMEA and Asia) functions in Johnson Matthey 2013-2021. Business Development Manager, global, at Desotec NV since 2021.