An often repeated mantra in the plastics industry is the need for strong partnerships and collaborations to move towards a sustainable, circular future. Now, Röhm, together with several partners, is putting this into action by establishing a Europe-wide alliance for the recycling of polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA).
The participating companies are Pekutherm, Nextchem, the sustainable technology division of Maire Group through its subsidiary MyRemono, Röhm and Polyvantis.
’Together, we are taking responsibility in the face of limited resources and processing a considerable amount of valuable raw materials for reuse in production,’ says Hans-Peter Hauck, Chief Operating Officer at Röhm.
The companies are pooling their expertise and strengths to establish a sustainable circular economy for PMMA in Europe. The network is interested in cooperating with all PMMA processing companies in Europe.
Röhm already offers customers an extensive range of products with a reduced carbon footprint, which are marketed under the proTerra brand. These are manufactured either by adding recycled PMMA, methyl methacrylate (MMA) or by using ISCC-PLUS certified sustainable raw materials.
The partnership between the four companies will enable considerably more PMMA materials to be processed. A combination of mechanical and chemical recycling technologies are used to process the waste into MMA and PMMA with a virgin-like quality.
For customers, switching from conventional products to more sustainable proTerra products will be simpler, as in many cases, no additional requalification steps will be needed. Furthermore, the greater availability of recycled raw materials means that in the future, projects will be able to be realised on a larger scale .
To date, the greatest challenges of the circular economy have been the lack of infrastructure, logistics and the availability of economically viable and sufficient quantities of recyclable PMMA.
As the logistics partner in the newly founded alliance, Pekutherm will ensure that the collected PIR scrap and PCR waste from across Europe are separated by type, passed through a multi-step sorting process, and granulated in a defined geometry. Pekutherm, currently the largest company in Europe specializing in PMMA recycling, has a sorting capacity of 10,000 tonnes per year.
Pekutherm collects recyclable materials and processes them for mechanical recycling. Then, it delivers these to its partners Röhm and Polyvantis, where they are reused as raw materials in production after just one additional processing step.
Any PMMA unsuitable for mechanical recycling will go to MyRemono, Nextchem’s subsidiary specialising in plastics recycling. Using Nextchem’s NXRe technology, an advanced and efficient molten metal depolymerisation process, this is then chemically converted back into pure MMA. As a continuous process for recycling plastic waste, the technology is now being brought to industrial scale for the first time in Italy with the support of the EU Innovation Fund. The plant is expected to be completed in 2026 and will have an initial processing capacity of 5,000 tons of PMMA per year – the equivalent of around 10 million car tail-lights. The carbon footprint of the recycled MMA produced in this way is expected to be more than 90 per cent smaller than the conventional product, annually preventing some 13,000 tonnes of greenhouse gas emission at full capacity.
The strategic partnership offers benefits for all partners. For Röhm and Polyvantis, it increases the availability of recycled PMMA, which can be used to manufacture products with a significantly reduced carbon footprint.
“From the monomer MMA to the polymer PMMA and the semi-finished product PLEXIGLAS®, customers will in future have the choice between conventional products and a wide range of sustainable variants based on recycled material,” said Hans-Peter Hauck.
The technology deployed by MyRemono can handle a wide range of PMMA grades.
“Our NXRe PMMA technology plays a key role in advancing circularity and the creation of this industrial consortium is a clear example of the relevance and validity of how disruptive technologies respond to current challenges,” noted Alessandro Bernini, CEO of Maire.
Pekutherm ’s flexible collection system is creating the basis for an industry-wide recycling system for PMMA in Europe. Pekutherm is the central point of contact for this. The company is inviting processors, customers and PMMA consumers throughout Europe to join the new network.
Source: sustainableplastics.com
