APK (Merseburg / Germany; www.apk-ag.de) on 12 April 2020 completed construction of a new laboratory at its headquarters, where the company initially plans to test LDPE and polyamide recyclate for packaging applications. The recycling specialist invested over EUR 1m in the project.

The analytics facility enables the team under chief technology officer Jürgen Flesch, who became part of the APK management board on 1 April 2020, and R&D director Hagen Hanel to develop current recycling processes and conceptual approaches to solvent-based recycling facilities as well as analyse recovery from different plastics streams. “Creating plastic recyclates with near-virgin qualities is our declared goal,” says Flesch.

The equipment in the new laboratory includes instruments to measure the melt-flow index and analyse the differential scanning calorimetry as well as a universal tensile testing machine, a pendulum impact tester, an injection moulding machine, heatable microcentrifuges, an infrared microscope and spectrometer, a high-temperature size exclusion chromatography and a spectral photometer for colour testing. This equipment enables APK to test in accordance with existing standards such as DIN EN ISO 527-1 for determining the tensile properties of plastics.