120 participants for 1st pinfa sparks webinar:
Experts discussed potential, challenges and solutions for recycling PIN flame retardant plastics. Thomas Futterer, pinfa Chairman (Budenheim), presented pinfa, active since 2019, with today 26 members manufacturers and users of PIN flame retardants. He outlined the contribution of flame retardants to fire safety and pinfa’s mission to ensure sustainable fire safety and technology progress, including through plastics recycling. Michael Grosshauser, Fraunhofer Institute for Structural Durability and System Reliability LBF, outlined the continuing EU policy push for plastics recycling, but noted that tonnages recycled have stagnated since 2022. Most technical plastics from post-consumer wastes are today incinerated, so also most flame retarded plastics, because of the considerable technical and logistic difficulties to identify and sort heterogeneous post-consumer waste plastics. Post-industrial secondary plastics are easier to recycle (closed loop). Fraunhofer, with pinfa, have carried out trials with a range of PIN FR plastics, showing that multi-cycle ageing – reprocessing recycling is possible with in most cases limited deterioration and fire performance maintained. Issues in recycling are generally because of deterioration of the polymer and of glass fibres, not related to the flame retardant. Performance materials can be reformulated from such mono-material recyclates by use of re-stabilisers, compatibilisers, chain extenders. A further Fraunhofer – pinfa project is now underway looking at upcycling of recyclates which are currently not recycled to performance plastics, with PIN FR compounding and assessment of final performance. Questions in discussion concerned contaminants in recycled plastics, implications for recycling of reactive FRs and the use of recycled PIN FR plastics in timber products.
pinfa ‘sparks’ webinar: recycling of PIN FR plastics, with Michael Grosshauser, Scientific Expert at Fraunhofer Institute for Structural Durability and System Reliability LBF - Innovation, Transfer and Cooperation, Germany, Thursday 5th February, watch online here. https://youtu.be/mH6uAYmdvis?si=IkMLVKophemJNm25
