Wed, 12 July, 2023
The Horizon 2020-funded Sol-Rec2 is an exciting project to develop and implement ground-breaking strategies – to improve the sorting, separation and recycling of pharma blister packs, and laminate consumer packaging waste consisting of multiple layers of polymers and aluminium – and create innovative, digital watermark technologies to Technology Readiness Level (TRL) 6, through successful demonstration of rapid and efficient sorting of multi-layer packaging.
The overall aim of the project is to deliver sustainable production of high purity polymers and aluminium – providing recyclers with a valuable income stream, while minimising the environmental impact and carbon footprint associated with virgin plastics production and bauxite mining – and also making a valuable contribution to the circular economy.
The collaborating partners behind Sol-Rec2, namely IPM2, Aimplas, FiliGrade, Solvionic, Plastigram, Mikrolin and the Materials Innovation Centre (Matic: a University of Leicester-TWI partnership), bring a wealth of combined experience to the project covering plastic waste collection and sorting, digital watermarks, ionic liquids, polymer dissolution, recycling of multi-layer materials, reuse of polymers, eco-design and life cycle assessments. The knowledge they discover together through Sol-Rec2 will help to accelerate innovative recycling within Eastern Europe and reduce the complexity of multi-layer materials, leading to the design of more sustainable laminate packaging.
Representatives from the project consortia companies have recently been undertaking a number of dissemination activities on Sol-Rec2, helping to extend the research and findings to date, out to the wider engineering and recycling communities.
AMI Plastics World Expos EUROPE, which focuses on compounding, recycling and testing, took place over two days in June 2023 in Essen, Germany, and was attended by Adamantini Loukodimou, Research Associate at MatIC, and Dr Christopher Lovell, Polymer Engineer at TWI, in the capacity of ambassadors for Sol-Rec2. Pascal Négré, CEO of IPM² and Dr George Theodosopoulos of TWI also gave a presentation on Sol-Rec2 on the second day of the conference in the technical sessions.
Adamantini receives her Moderator Certificate from PolyNano 2023, Barcelona
Then later in June, Adamantini additionally attended the PolyNano 2023 conference in Barcelona, Spain, this time presenting a poster on Sol-Rec2 entitled On the Way to Sustainable Waste Management: Enhancing Recycling of Multi-material Waste using ‘Green’ Solvents’, as well as being a Moderator during the technical sessions.
Speaking of the time she spent at the two conferences, Adamantini said “It is a unique and amazing experience being able to participate in international dissemination events and communicating the objectives and scientific results of Sol-Rec2”.
The Sol-Rec2 project has a duration of 36 months and was funded by European Union’s Horizon 2020 programme under Grant Agreement no. 101003532.