Cluster 4 Plastics Recycling

Copyright: © WSA

The PrepFund project Cluster 4 Plastics Recycling bundles cross-faculty supplementary expertise from RWTH Aachen University. The central objective is to identify cross-technology synergies and application potentials involving renewable energy and carbon sources for the development of an economically and ecologically viable multidimensional recycling economy for synthetic polymers. The results will be incorporated into review articles and follow-up applications. In the long term, Cluster 4 Plastics Recycling will serve as a nucleus for further networking of relevant disciplines, contributing to sustainable economic growth of the polymer sector in the region and its future competitiveness.

At WSA, primarily the thermochemical conversion of polymers is investigated experimentally. Pyrolysis can be used either to recover monomer units from polymers or to produce specific chemical building blocks for further processes. As part of the PrepFund project, the reactor system is being upgraded for the investigation of polymers and initial experiments are being conducted regarding the influence of polymer type, pyrolysis temperature and reaction time.