Cast Film Production with Polyethylene Recycled from a Post-Industrial Printed Multilayer Film by Solvent-Targeted Recovery and Precipitation

• Published in: ACS materials letters 2024-09, Vol.6 (9), p.4042-4050
• Main Authors: Sánchez-Rivera, Kevin L., Granger, Charles, Appiah, Harrison, Nelson, Kevin, Grey, Steve, Sun, David J., Estela-García, John E., Chen, Edward, Xu, Zhuo, Osswald, Tim A., Turng, Lih-Sheng, McDonald, Armando G., Van Lehn, Reid C., Bar-Ziv, Ezra, Huber, George W.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Color; Plastics; Polyethylene; Solvents; Thin films
• ISSN: 2639-4979; 2639-4979
• DOI: 10.1021/acsmaterialslett.4c01048

The solvent-targeted recovery and precipitation (STRAP) process separates and recovers the constituent resins in multilayer plastic packaging films by selective polymer dissolution. In this work, three different experimental methods were considered to recover a polyethylene (PE) resin from a printed multilayer film by STRAP. The methods consisted of (1) a filter bag system, (2) a Soxhlet extraction, and (3) a jacketed dissolution vessel. Cast films were produced with the PE recovered from each method and were analyzed for color, mechanical properties, and number of impurities. High-quality recycled PE cast films can be produced by increasing the solvent to plastic ratio, including a filter pore size of 100 μm, and optimizing temperature control in STRAP. This study demonstrates that STRAP polymers can be recycled back into plastic films, enabling the potential circularity of these packaging materials.