Fraunhofer to investigate use of recycled plastics in demanding applications

Iranpolymer/Baspar The Fraunhofer Institute for Structural Durability and System Reliability (LBF) wants to widen the applications of recycled plastic to technical, high-value applications. Such applications include plastic components for the automotive, commercial vehicle, or white goods industries, for example.

Whilst the use of recycled plastic is already established in some applications, e.g. in the PET bottle sector, its use in demanding applications is still very limited. According to Plastics Europe, only 2% of recyclates currently end up in electrical and electronic equipment (EEE).

To change that, the Germany-based research institute is starting a new project called Design for Reliability and is looking for industrial partners to join its efforts from Aug. 1, 2024.

The two-year project will study the properties of recycled plastics under high-stress applications. In particular, it will investigate the interactions between material flow, processing, and long-term behaviour under such applications. Some of the questions the project aims to answer include:

• How do batch fluctuations affect the properties?
• Which material properties of the recyclates are sufficient for my product?
• What long-term properties result for the respective material?
• How can the service life of components made from recyclates be assessed and what options are there for increasing it if necessary?
• How can the changed material properties be determined and estimated using a quantitative method and transferred to a design routine?

The team will carry out analytical and mechanical tests to recycled batches and compared the results with virgin material. The recycled plastic to be investigated could be rPP, rPA, or other, depending on the requirements of the project’s partners.

The results of the tests should help companies adapt their own design methodology for component design and thus design technical components made from recyclates for operational reliability. They should also be able to formulate very specific requirements for material manufacturers.

The joint industrial project is aimed at companies across the value chain, including manufacturers, recyclers, compounders, processors, and additive manufacturers.

In another project which is now coming to a close, Fraunhofer created a lightweight plastic housing for EV batteries designed for recyclability. The results of the project will be on show at the Plastics Recycling Show Europe next week. Find Fraunhofer at booth A22.

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