Technologies to recycle PVC materials
Explore innovative recycling solutions for Divinycell-PVC in this thesis. Make real impact on climate and circularity!
Client
For 70 years Diab International AB has developed, manufactured, and sold high-performance core materials that can be found in applications allover the world, in industries like marine, aerospace, wind energy and transport. The core materials have a unique combination of characteristicssuch as low weight and high strength. The company’s largest market is the wind power industry, where the core material is used as a component tobuild the blades of the turbine. In 2019 Diab signed a fi ve-years supply agreement with Vestas, one of the world’s leading suppliers of wind turbines.
Diab has 800 employees, production units in Sweden, Italy, US, China, Lithuania, and Ecuador combined with 14 sales units around the world.
Divinycell – PVC
The core materials that DIAB manufactures consist of various types of polymers/polymer compositions. One of them is Divinycell-PVC that offersexcellent mechanical properties and low weight. It is widely used and has a proven track record in virtually every application area employingsandwich composites, including wind, marine, industry, and transport.
Divinycell-PVC consists of PVC as one part of the polymer network, and the other part of the network is a range of thermoset polymers of polyurea,polyamine, and polyamide. Other reaction products are also present. The PVC-part stands for almost 50 weight-% and the thermoset polymers forthe rest of the polymer content.
Task
A signifi cant proportion of the company’s climate impact comes from the Divinycell-PVC waste. The mixture of thermoplastic and thermosetpolymers makes the core material diffi cult to recycle, and at the same time the current manufacturing process creates a lot of waste, like chips andsmaller parts after milling and sawing. This waste goes primarily to incineration.
The aim of this project is to investigate what possibilities there are to take care of the waste. Is there any technology on the market today that couldbe developed to recycle or break down the Divinycell-PVC material or parts of the material? Is there any research within this area? Are there any potential areas where the waste could be used?
Final delimitations are discussed with the supervisor at the university and contact person at the company.
Related sustainability goals
