Plastics have become an integral part of our daily lives. Because of their weight, colourability, corrosion resistance and malleability, the number of possible applications is enormous. Vulcanised rubber is often used when elasticity and flexibility are required. Rubber has the disadvantage of being difficult or impossible to recycle and also requires specific knowledge of processability, which is why only a limited number of companies are active in the rubber industry. To improve the processability and thus recyclability of rubber, thermoplastic elastomers (TPE) were introduced as an alternative material in 1960. Especially in the last 10-15 years, a large number of new TPE materials have been produced that can provide a worthy alternative to various rubber materials.

• Given the relative novelty of TPE materials, the INTERREG V project Elasto-Plast (2016-2021) aimed to introduce companies to these materials. A network of interested companies was set up in the Interreg region and the potential of TPEs was demonstrated using concrete practical examples that companies could work with. 
• With the current inflation of raw material prices, growing carbon footprint and the need to stop the large amount of synthetic plastic waste, these same companies are increasingly looking for sustainable solutions, on the one hand looking for a way to use recycled polymers (circular economy) and on the other hand, the demand for bio-based materials (green economy) is also increasing in order to be less dependent on the earth's finite resources, such as oil.

Knowledge about recycling end-of-life TPEs and producing sustainable building blocks (e.g. building blocks from biomass or non-recyclable TPE waste streams) is scarce among companies in the border region. To answer these questions, the ELASTOPLAST core group (Centexbel, URCA, ULille and KU Leuven) decided to join forces again. The strengths and weaknesses of the core group were analysed and it was decided to use Certech's expertise for the chemical recycling part. To reach an even larger target group within the Interreg region, Euramaterials was also added to the consortium as a partner. 

It is expected that TPEs can be reprocessed into usable raw materials via various recycling techniques. However, the choice of the most suitable recycling technique strongly depends on the shape, hardness and contamination of the TPE products. As a first technique, mechanical recycling is studied with the aim of obtaining usable regranulates that can be reused as raw materials in various plastic processing processes (extrusion, injection moulding, 3D printing). For TPE streams that are difficult to recycle mechanically (mixed and/or contaminated plastic streams), chemical recycling can be an alternative. Two different chemical recycling techniques, pyrolysis (thermal or catalytic cracking of the materials into usable oil or gas products) and chemical depolymerisation (decomposition into monomers or oligomers) will be studied in detail.

Finally, the development of a new generation of sustainable TPEs will be investigated based on both chemical recycling and bio-based building blocks. The scale-up of different recycling and synthesis techniques will be demonstrated to recycling and plastics processing companies in the border region. 

Consequently, this project will focus on 3 jointly developed pilot projects (mechanical and chemical recycling of TPE and the development of sustainable TPE).

In this way, the cross-border project aims to contribute to the development of products made from recycled and/or bio-based materials in companies in the Interreg region. This project is therefore fully in line with the European Green Deal and the Circular Plastics Alliance (CPA), which aims to increase the European recycled plastics market to 10 million tonnes by 2025. The recycling of TPE materials can give an additional boost to the sector and significantly increase the volume of recyclate.

Project leader:

Centexbel

Partners:

Certech, Université de Reims Champagne-Ardenne, Université de Lille, KU Leuven, Euramaterials

Associated partners:

Pôle Greenwin, Catalisti vzw