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Performance
of 50 Completed ATP Projects
Status
Report - Number 2
NIST SP 950-2
Chapter
2 - Advanced Materials and Chemicals
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Michigan
Molecular Institute (MMI)
Recycling Mixed Plastics
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| Like
turning swords into plowshares, the idea of turning waste plastics
into fenceposts, park benches, building blocks, and other useful,
long-lasting items holds tremendous promise for the welfare of society.
Wood rots, iron rusts, and stones weather, but plastic endures. You
can tear, bend, or break plastic. But words like “rot” or
“rust” simply do not apply — a blessing when durability
is at issue; a curse when plastics are dumped into landfills. |
COMPOSITE
PERFORMANCE SCORE
(Based on a four star rating.)
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Technology to Recycle
Much More Waste Plastic
The U.S. economy produces about 75 million pounds of plastic products
each year, and the idea of recycling them is appealing. A problem with
reusing plastics, though, is that the many kinds do not mix well in recycling
processes. Recycling today requires sorting of plastics, many of which
still get dumped because they are not compatible with the others. This
ATP project with Michigan Molecular Institute (MMI) aimed to develop a
technology that would dramatically increase the proportion of plastics
that can be recycled. The new technology would “compatibilize,”
or alter, various plastics so they mix well in recycling. They could then
be formed into pellets with essentially the characteristics of virgin
plastics. These pellets would be mixed into a slurry fed into a continuous
flow process that puts out a mixed plastic strong enough for construction
materials.
A key technical goal
of the project was to develop the science and technology of polymer compatibilization,
which would enable polymers in the commingled plastic-waste stream to
be recycled into commercially useful products.
Collaborating researchers
from Eastman Kodak, Eastman Chemical, and the University of Florida (UF)
accomplished that goal by establishing the fundamentals of compatibilization
of multiphase polymer blends, including new knowledge about the morphology
— the shape and structure — of polymer blends. The team also
prepared compatibilizers using a variety of chemical approaches and produced
and tested prototype compatibilized materials. Researchers found effective
methods to compatibilize commingled-plastic waste.
New Recycled-Plastic
Products
Results of the ATP project are being used by Eagle Plastics Systems of
Florida to produce compatibilized plastic panels for housing parts, in
collaboration with UF researchers who were involved in the ATP project.
Large four-inch-thick panels are fabricated by sandwiching fiberglass
insulation between thin plastic sheets attached to galvanized steel studs.
These wall units are then used for the construction of low cost, modular
houses, many of which are used following a fire or other disaster, when
temporary housing must be built quickly. The company plans to construct
full-scale compatibilized plastic-panel manufacturing plants in the near
future.
Eagle constructed
an assembly plant in Kentucky and began manufacturing modular houses there
in late 1996. It uses recycled plastics brought from a pilot plant to
the site by railroad cars that left the state loaded with coal. Because
of the extremely low cost of the recycled plastics, the company can manufacture
its houses for about $6 per square foot, much lower than the cost of conventional
housing, which runs as high as $50 per square foot. During its first year
producing the modular houses, Eagle generated more than $100 million in
contracts.
In addition, attempts
to commercialize the technology are under way via the development of two
new MMI research and development projects in the auto industry that focus
on recycling plastics from auto parts such as dashboards and door panels.
Both projects rely on the knowledge of polymer blend morphology discovered
in the ATP project. If these projects generate applications in the auto
industry, the ATP technology will be commercialized via that route, as
well.
Commercialization
efforts did not proceed as quickly as anticipated when the proposal was
submitted. One obstacle to the speed of commercialization was a change
in ownership and direction of Waste Alternatives, one of the initial collaborators
on the project and the company that was planned to play a key role in
commercializing the technology.
ATP Funding Critical
for Recycling Research
Without the ATP award, MMI officials say, the project would not have been
undertaken. The funding helped MMI forge relations with research partners
at the University of Florida, Eagle, Eastman Kodak, and Eastman Chemical.
Research on post-consumer plastics packaging recycling, based on the ATP-funded
technology and substantial funding from Eagle, is continuing at the university.
In addition, researchers there have extended the ATP technology to develop
new virgin plastics alloys that are expected to lead to further commercialization.
A 30-acre plastics recycling industrial park is being constructed on land
owned by the UF Foundation, and continuing support for research amounting
to about $100 million over the next 15 years is anticipated.
In addition, the use
of knowledge developed by the ATP project may have advanced the two succeeding
studies at MMI for recycled plastics parts in the auto industry by as
much as two years. The scientific information generated by the ATP project
has also been made generally available, via published technical papers,
to the plastics and recycling industries.
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Project
Highlights
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PROJECT:
To develop methods for polymer compatibilization — adding small
amounts of a substance to a blend of different plastics to make
them chemically compatible so that the material fabricated from
them has good mechanical and physical properties. This technology
would greatly increase the amount of waste plastic that can be recycled.
Duration: 8/15/1992 — 8/14/1995
ATP Number: 91-01-0088
FUNDING (in
thousands):
| ATP |
$1,642
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30%
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| Company |
3,808
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70%
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| Total |
$5,450
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ACCOMPLISHMENTS:
MMI researchers and their collaborators established the fundamentals
of polymer compatibilization, which enables polymers in a waste
stream of different kinds of plastics to be recycled into commercially
useful products. Indicators of this accomplishment are that MMI
and its collaborators:
- published
more than 10 papers on the technology in professional journals;
- made the
technology available to Eagle Plastics Systems to develop and
test materials for the housing construction industry; and
- made the
technology available through MMI to two ongoing R&D projects
in the automobile industry that focus on recycling plastics from
auto parts such as dashboards, door panels and tail lights.
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COMMERCIALIZATION
STATUS:
One collaborating company has begun to use the technology in the construction
of low-cost modular houses. Information on the technology generated
by the project is now available to the plastics and recycling industries
via published technical papers, and some of it is being used in additional
research projects.
OUTLOOK:
One collaborating company has begun to use the technology in the
construction of low-cost modular houses. Information on the technology
generated by the project is now available to the plastics and recycling
industries via published technical papers, and some of it is being
used in additional research projects.
Composite
Performance Score:
ORGANZATION:
Michigan Molecular Institute (MMI)
1910 W. St. Andrews Road
Midland, MI 48640-2696
Contact: Conrad F. Balazs
Phone: (517) 832-3882 ext. 590
Informal collaborators: University of Florida; Eagle Plastics
Systems; Eastman Kodak Company; Eastman Chemical Company; Inter
Recycling, Inc.
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of Contents or go to next section.
Date created: April
2002
Last updated:
April 12, 2005
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