— By Plasteurope.com staff — 

Ascend Performance Materials (Houston, Texas, USA; www.ascendmaterials.com) has announced a step forward in the recycling of PA 6.6, a material renowned for its high heat tolerance, chemical resistance, and durability.

Used extensively in industries such as automotive, textiles, and tyre manufacturing, PA 6.6 is notoriously difficult to recycle due to its durability, often resulting in downcycling and reduced material performance.

With its new molecular recycling process, Ascend said it can offer a solution to this challenge. By depolymerising PA 6.6 into an oligomeric state, the company says it has developed a method that allows the production of high-quality polymer, suitable for use in demanding applications.

This process not only maintains the material’s performance, but also enables sustainable fibre-to-fibre conversion, it added.

Related: Ascend closes Dutch compounding unit, moves production to Italy

The chemical manufacturer said that this initiative is “bridging the gap between sustainability and high-performance recovery”, marking a step towards greater use of sustainable materials in various industries.

Additionally, Ascend has expanded its Bioserve portfolio with the production of acrylonitrile, hexamethylene diamine, adipic acid, and PA 6.6 from used cooking oil.

This production method results in PA 6.6 that has a 25% lower product carbon footprint compared with conventional polyamide made from fossil-fuel feedstocks, the company said. It added that it uses an ISCC Plus-certified mass-balance approach, enabling industrial-scale production of sustainable materials without sacrificing performance.

The company also aims to reduce Scope 1 and 2 emissions. Its Bioserve products offer some of the lowest carbon footprints for industrial-scale PA 6.6 and its precursors currently available on the market, Ascend said.