— By Plasteurope.com correspondent — 

Four European companies have banded together to improve the prospects for recycling polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA) by combining their skills, and hope to work with other PMMA processing operators across the region.

Chemicals company Röhm (Darmstadt, Germany; www.roehm.com), together with semi-finished product manufacturer Polyvantis (Weiterstadt, Germany; www.polyvantis.com), NextChem, part of Italian engineering group Maire Tecnimont (Milan; www.mairetecnimont.com), and recycling specialist Pekutherm Kunststoffe (Geisenheim, Germany; www.pekutherm.de), said they were pooling their expertise to establish a sustainable circular economy for PMMA in Europe.

With a sorting capacity of 10,000 t/y, Pekutherm’s expertise lays in collecting, sorting, and granulating waste PMMA. Waste that can be mechanically recycled will be handled by Röhm and Polyvantis, while materials requiring chemical recycling will be processed by MyRemono(Montorio al Vomano, Italy), a subsidiary of NextChem, using its NXRe technology, which uses a series of molten metal depolymerisation processes.

According to NextChem, MyRemono’s investment for the technology development and scale-up, as well as for the construction of the first industrial-scale plant, is currently expected to be approximately EUR 15 mn, mainly funded by a bank loan and the EU Innovation Fund grant.

Maire announced that NextChem, through its subsidiary, has signed a toll manufacturing agreement with Röhm under which the German company will supply PMMA scrap material feedstock to be processed and chemically transformed by MyRemono into ultra-pure monomers with virgin-like quality. The facility, expected to be completed by 2026 in Italy, will have an initial processing capacity of about 5,000 t/y, and yield recycled MMA with GHG emissions reduced by over 90% compared to the current virgin MMA production routes, Maire said.

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The firms said such a strategic partnership offered benefits all round. Hans-Peter Hauck, Röhm’s chief operating officer, said: “For Röhm and Polyvantis, it increases the availability of recycled PMMA, which can be used to manufacture products with a significantly reduced carbon footprint. 

“From the monomer MMA to the polymer PMMA and the semi-finished product Plexiglas, customers will in future have the choice between conventional products and a wide range of sustainable variants based on recycled material.”

In a joint statement the four firms said the partnership would result in “considerably more” PMMA material being processed via both mechanical and chemical recycling and returned to the market as MMA and PMMA that was close to virgin quality. 

PMMA is used in a variety of end products, including automotive components, architectural glazing, medical products and electronic devices.