Recycling of Multilayer Packaging Foils by Using Diferent Organic Solvent

Тамарі Мумладзе ,Maksym Tatariants ,Samy Yousef ,Гінтарас Денафас ,Asta Rimšaitė

doi:10.5829/ijee.2019.10.01.06

Тамарі Мумладзе , Maksym Tatariants + Show 3 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.5829/ijee.2019.10.01.06

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Abstract

Multilayer Packaging wastes are one of the major problem in the world. About 6 billion tons of packages are generated per year in the world (in EU is about 82 million tons per year). Multilayer packaging foils are approximately 17% of all produced packaging films. Most produced multilayer film is based on different polymers, such as: polyethylene terephthalate (PET), polypropylene (PP), and polyethylene (PE) as main components, and an aluminum layer. However, because of their poor recyclability, most multi layers are usually incinerated or landfill, this is counteracting the efforts towards a circular economy. There are different recycling methods for this type of waste, but the main problem is that there is less company which recycling multilayer packaging foils. Also, it is very important that, mostly they recovering only one or two components and others are burned or landfilled. The aim of this research was to find the most suitable solvent for recycling multilayer packaging foils and recover two common components: polymer and Al foil. For the first experiment, there was chosen multilayer packaging foil’s different samples, such as: packaging for chocolate, chips, medicines and coffee. There was used several chemicals: acetic acid, acetone, dimethyl formamide, ethanol, ethyl acetate and toluene. These solvents are on the list of green chemicals and they were selected, due to their less impact on environment and human health. The recycling process and result was different for each samples and solvents, because of their individual characteristics.

Highlights

Packaging wastes are significant part of municipal solid waste which has caused increasing environmental concerns, resulting in strengthening of EU Regulations in order to reduce amounts of packaging wastes [1,2]
Once the layers of different materials are separated from each other, a method is required to sort the different material flakes e.g. PE, polyethylene terephthalate (PET), aluminum foil etc. from each other
There is a brief study about the separation process by dissolving PE–aluminum (PE-Al) composites into a series of organic solvents with a combination of time and temperature

Summary

Introduction

Packaging wastes are significant part of municipal solid waste which has caused increasing environmental concerns, resulting in strengthening of EU Regulations in order to reduce amounts of packaging wastes [1,2]. Due to food contamination in most flexible packaging going through the current recycling system, a very small percentage is reusable [5] Because of this type of packaging waste is typical and at the same time problematic, various companies and researchers are working on resolving this problem; For example: Enval have developed a process where mixing shredded waste is mixed with carbon, a highly microwaveabsorbent material. Cervantes-Reyes et al [12] have introduced nonpolar solvents as more efficient in the recovery process of PE films from PE-Al composites using a polymer dissolving as key step in the recovery strategy. For aluminum recovering from aluminum alloy processing, wet process separation method has been selected, for which, we used six different solvents: acetic acid, acetone, dimethyl formamide, ethanol, ethyl acetate and toluene. For pharmaceutical blisters samples mass before and after treatment by ethyl acetate (see Table 1)

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