Page 61 - Plastics News October 2023

ronments. powder cleaning concentrates wrap bathing products that will
• Cleaning Supplies – EcoSol can for easy addition to buckets of be directly thrown into bath wa-
be used to wrap detergent car- wash water. ter (e.g., bath salts).
tridges that can be inserted • Personal Care Products – EcoSol
touch-free into the dishwasher. can be made into disposable cas-
It is also a great way to package es for beauty products or used to

Pyrowave Announces First Finished Products Using 100% Recycled Styrene

est results from Michelin and technical parts, and insulation prod- Doucet told PlasticsToday. “Its prima-
TKnauf Industries in France re- ucts, generated expanded polysty- ry application focuses on depolymer-
portedly show properties and per- rene parts via Knauf Circular using izing polystyrene, transforming it into
formance are identical to virgin fossil- Pyrowave’s recycled styrene. The valuable styrene monomer. Today's
sourced styrene. resulting products also passed all lab announcement underscores that our

Montréal-based Pyrowave said this tests demonstrating equivalency with solution seamlessly integrates into
week that it has reached a new mile- products made with fossil-based vir- the entire value chain, offering excep-
stone with its microwave-based de- gin styrene. Migration tests confirmed tional quality, robustness, and com-
polymerization technology — the that the material was suitable for mercial viability. It also highlights our
first finished products made from its food-contact applications. commitment to collaborative part-
100% recycled styrene. Michelin and The tests performed by Michelin, nerships throughout the value chain,”
Knauf Industries in France have suc- which has been collaborating with Py- said Doucet.
cessfully produced batches of finished rowave since 2020, and Knauf Indus- Using microwave technology to disas-
elastomer and plastic products in- tries incorporating recycled styrene semble polymers into their constitu-
corporating plastic waste recycled in are significant as SBR and EPS are ent parts has several advantages over
Canada using Pyrowave technology. technical polymers used in the indus- traditional thermal-based advanced
Tests reportedly show that the prop- try, explained Pyrowave. Since SBR recycling processes that rely mostly
erties and performance of elastomers and EPS production processes are rel- on fuel-based heating of polymers, ac-
made from recycled styrene were atively sensitive to contamination, the cording to Doucet.
identical to materials made from vir- success of these tests demonstrates Pyrowave’s technology enables rapid
gin fossil-sourced materials. the reliability of Pyrowave technol- and high-intensity heating, resulting
Michelin to incorporate recycled ogy and that the recycled styrene can in an impressive yield of nearly 100%
styrene in tires replace fossil styrene in technical ap- liquid products in the output, said
plications while improving a product’s Doucet. “In contrast, conventional
Michelin has produced a four-ton environmental footprint. The tech-
prototype batch of styrene-butadiene nology reduces greenhouse gas emis- thermal-based processes have slower
rubber (SBR) at its plant in Bassens, sions by 82% according to a recent heating rates and consequently yield
France, according to Pyrowave. The life-cycle analysis commissioned by only about half the Pyrowave output.
SBR produced using 100% recycled Pyrowave, and allows waste plastics This translates to higher productivity
styrene passed all quality tests, an to be used as a raw material, further- and improved economics when har-
important milestone for further tests ing the goals of a circular economy. nessing microwave technology. More-
incorporating the recycled styrene in over, the energy efficiency of micro-
tires for laboratory and track applica- Seamless integration in entire value wave-based processes allows for the
tions, said Pyrowave. chain use of renewable energy sources, a
pivotal step toward decarbonizing the
Material complies with food-contact “Pyrowave's technology has already chemical industry,” Doucet told Plas-
regulations reached an industrial scale and under-
gone extensive piloting over the past ticsToday.
Knauf Industries, a supplier of ex- decade,” President and CEO Jocelyn
panded polystyrene (EPS) packaging,

PLASTICS NEWS 6161
October 2023 PLASTICS NEWS