The nanoHPcs project addresses the urgent need to increase the share of plastic recycling in the EU. Global plastic production in 2014 amounted 311 million of tonnes (EU: ≈59 Mtonnes). Until today only 10 EU countries have banned landfilling of plastics waste. Since 31% of plastics waste in Europe – representing 8 Mtonnes – is still landfilled, much energy and processed raw material is lost instead of being recycled into new products. Apart from the general provisions in the EU Waste Framework Directive, no specific EU legislation addresses plastic waste in a strategic way. Some countries are nevertheless further forward, such as in Germany, where a share of recycled plastics is compulsory in some sectors (e.g. for the manufacturing of window profiles). Today, plastics and fibre-reinforced plastics have become the first material of use in many sectors (construction, automotive, aviation, etc.), being in many cases lighter, cheaper, more resistant and recyclable than metal. This highly affects the production equipment, as for plastics extrusion, machines must cope with increasing production amounts and requirements. Even more challenging is the extrusion of waste materials and of plastics aggregates with abrasive metal, ceramic, glass and wooden particles. Although an increasing number of companies in Europe are willing to improve their corporate sustainability, the challenge is to make recycled plastics as pricely attractive as non-recycled, raw plastics material. Also, since recycled plastic is more abrasive, plastics processing machines (e.g. extrusion machines) must not lose any performance and quality through incorporating the recycled material. Apart from through a more favourable legal framework and further public awareness raising, the recycling of plastic can be increased and facilitated at the very beginning of the value chain with the use of sustainable, smart technologies and materials in plastics production.
The goals of this innovation business project are to:
1) increase the eco-efficient use of materials in Europe by contributing to the re-use of plastics waste in the plastics extrusion industry;
2) add value to the plastics extrusion market by introducing the innovative solution that will improve productivity, production capacity and lifetime of machines
3) enable our target users to improve their competitiveness through better performance of extrusion machines and enhance their corporate sustainability by allowing the increase in use of recycled and sustainable plastics;
4) solve problems met by our users such as wear and corrosion, production waste, high O&M costs, difficulty of production with abrasive plastics compounds;
5) allow Thermico to gain a leading position in providing adapted coating solutions for the plastics extrusion market, opening the way to an extension to fast following markets such as injection moulding and foil production.
