After two years of research, the European “Life Extruclean” project, coordinated by Spanish plastics technology centre Aimplas (Valencia; www.aimplas.net), has built a pilot plant that uses an innovative process to decontaminate plastic waste that contains hazardous substances. The centre said the technology has reached over 70% of the effectiveness of conventional processes and that it is now scaling its work to industrial level and testing the output material.

The 30-month project, funded through the EU’s “Life” programme, has developed a decontamination process using scCO₂ (supercritical carbon dioxide) in the extrusion process following cleaning. Recycling and recovery specialist Acteco Productos y Servicios (Ibi, Alicante / Spain; www.acteco.net) is working on implementation of the technology with the aim of simplifying the current washing and drying processes prior to extrusion, with consequent energy, waste water and resource reduction.

Enplast (Madrid / Spain; www.enplast.es) is responsible for extruding packages using the recycled material, while Spanish packaging technology institute Aidimme (Valencia / Spain; www.aidimme.es) will carry out validation of final output.

Aimplas said the technology will allow an improvement in the quality of recycled material, opening opportunities to manufacture higher value-added packages, for example in packaging for hazardous substances and mixtures.