Document Type

Article

Publication Date

3-14-2025

Department

Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering

Abstract

The solvent-targeted recovery and precipitation (STRAP) process separates and recovers the constituent resins in multilayer plastic packaging films by selective polymer dissolution. In this work, the cause of coloring in the STRAP-recycled polyethylene (PE) resins from postindustrial printed films was identified as decomposed diarylide pigments. Two different approaches are needed to completely remove the dissolved colorants during the STRAP process including (i) adding an activated carbon (AC) adsorbent to the solvent after polymer dissolution and (ii) proper mechanical filtration of the polymer-solvent cake to remove as much solvent from the cake as possible. Colorless recycled PE can be produced by a combination of the proposed approaches (choosing the proper solvent, adding an AC adsorbent, and doing proper mechanical filtration) with minimal accumulation of colorants in the recycled STRAP solvents. This study demonstrated that high-quality STRAP low-density PE can be obtained from printed plastic films, enhancing the potential circularity of these packaging materials.

Publisher's Statement

Publisher's version of record: https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.adt5841

Copyright © 2025 The Authors, some rights reserved; exclusive licensee American Association for the Advancement of Science. No claim to original U.S. Government Works. Distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0 (CC BY).

Publication Title

Science Advances

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

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