The waste pre-treatment is a very important step in the recycling process of the PET. Polyester or PET waste requires pretreatment, as enzymatic recycling is more effective when the plastic structure is easier to access. One approach is to extrude and then amorphize the PET waste beforehand. In this context, Michelin and IFTH work on pre-treatment process of the PET from tire complex waste.
The process to amorphize this feedstock is realized by thermal treatment with a specific equipment called “thermogranulation machine”.
Last few months, Michelin and IFTH have set up and improved the process to obtain amorphized pellets from PET fibers. At lab scale, the work focused on testing few parameters and conditions to lower the crystallinity despite the contaminants such as rubber or other fibers. The lab scale depolymerization results have highlighted relevant conditions which have been scaled up in order to produce amorphized pellets from tire fibers.
During the next few months, theses amorphized pellets will continue the recycling closed loop from depolymerization to a new technical yarn.
