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Report

Teaser, summary, work performed and final results

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - ECOSHEET-PRO (An Eco-Innovative Alternative to Plywood)

Teaser

Summary

ECOSHEET-PRO is an eco-innovative and cost-effective alternative to plywood made from mixed plastic waste, suitable for high strength applications in the construction industry. The main scope of ECOSHEET-PRO project is to tackle two significant environmental challenges facing Europe, whilst also offering added value to the construction industry. The first issue addressed is that of mixed plastic waste. In Europe, in 2014, 18 million tonnes of post-consumer waste plastics were landfilled or incinerated, as they could not be easily separated and recycled. The second issue is the growth in the use of plywood, typically manufactured from slow-growing, tropical hardwoods. This material is a key, high volume commodity in construction industry formworks and an area the size of Madrid is deforested each year to meet Europeâ€™s demand. ECOSHEET-PRO transforms mixed plastic that would otherwise be wasted into a competitive, reusable, plywood replacement, cutting down global demand for plywood and contributing to a substantial reduction in deforestation and biodiversity loss, avoiding landfilling or incinerating mixed plastics.
Previous attempts to create such boards have failed to deliver the strength or cost effectiveness required by industry. ETE and ICMA have overcome these barriers through an innovative manufacturing process which is being refined during this project. ECOSHEET-PRO has the potential to re-define the â‚¬1.8 billion European plywood industry and help Europe meet its demanding plastic recycling targets, contributing to the circular economy.

Work performed

During the first 11 months of the ECOSHEET-PRO project both partners, ICMA and ETE, have proactively collaborated to issue the planned project activities; ten deliverables and two milestones have been achieved. The first RP mainly covers the technical project development (manufacturing process towards large-scale production) with the issuance of preliminary communication and dissemination activities. Project partners have although prioritized the attendance to specialized trade fairs in order to communicate the potential and achieved results to a specific audience of industrial stakeholders and potential customers.
During this first phase, many relevant technical results have been already achieved: first, it has been decided to opt for a different co-extrusion system, no longer a combined solution with a co-extrusion group & flat die unit, but a multimanifold co-extrusion system which integrated into the die three separate melt distribution channel die independently adjustable. This system will allow the achievement of the maximum flexibility during tests and with maximum freedom to experiment raw materials with a wide range of performances. The Advanced prototype design has also been realized considering the parameters provided in the project: production of a board with 610 mm width and 2440 mm length with a thickness of 18 mm and a minimum productivity of 100 Kg/h. A full pilot line design has been completed by ICMA, following the feedstock specification requirements identified by ETE. Furthermore, the data collected at the test lab supported the identification of the ideal sizing for a line that will be capable of producing a full-size board (2440mm x 1220mm â€“ 18mm) and with a processing capability of 500kg of feedstock per hours. Finally, even if the work is still ongoing, the design of major components of the full pilot line is also almost completed.

Final results

ECOSHEET-PRO is a new technology capable to replace the plywood use in many fields since the recycling of heterogeneous plastics mixtures. The large-scale application of this technology determines several environmental benefits, such as the reuse of plastics wastes subtracting them to the environment (surface waters, oceans, landfills, incineration). The breakthrough consists exactly in the possibility to re-use the plastics waste mass at whole to build formworks panels without demanding expensive processes to separate the different polymers (polyesters, polypropylene, PET, PVC, etc.). This is especially valuable for the management of urban wastes streams where the separation of different polymers results expensive and resources consuming. A further benefit for the environment is conversely derived by the reduced amount of natural wood demanded for the manufacturing of panels. The ECOSHEET-PRO panel can be also reused and recycled itself. ETE foresees a large-scale uptake of ECOSHEET-PRO made panels for a broad series of applications that range from the manufacturing of formboards for construction industry as wall many other temporary architectural elements to be used for both indoor and outdoor public environments.
Instead, ICMA San Giorgio, foresees a large market uptake for the co-rotating screw technology to be used in the processing of plastic waste streams characterized by an undefined composition.
The progress beyond the state of the art is represented by the possibility to use plastic urban solid waste without demanding a separation process. Further, the panels obtained have the same proprieties of plywood thus overcoming the current non-wood alternatives for formworks use.
This technology is very relevant to foster the recycling of plastic urban waste even when more expensive polymers separation technologies are not available on site.
The encouraging results obtained until now, suggest indeed a possible scale-up of the current process thus permitting a large-scale production of ECOSHEET-PRO made panels with relevant benefits for industry and environment.