broadly, there are 2 major ways to recycle plastic. (1) mechanical recycling chop and wash, where the plastic is washed, ground into powders, and melted, and (2) chemical recycling, where the plastic is broken down into monomers.
Distributed recycling
Distributed recycling of plastics using additive manufacturing can include mechanical grinding to make granules for 1) fused granular fabrication, 2) heated syringe printing, 3) 3-D printed molds coupled to injection molding and 4) filament production into fused filament fabrication. For some waste plastics, technical devices called recyclebots enable a form of distributed recycling by making 3D printing filament. Preliminary LCA indicates that such distributed recycling of HDPE to make filament for fused filament 3d printers in rural regions is energetically favorable to either using virgin resin or conventional recycling processes because of reductions in transportation energy.
For some polymers, it is possible to convert them back into monomers, for example, PET can be treated with alcohol and a catalyst to form a dialkyl terephthalate. The terephthalate diester can be used with ethylene glycol to form a new polyester polymer, thus making it possible to use the pure polymer again.
A process has also been developed in which many kinds of plastic can be used as a carbon source in the recycling of scraps steel there are also possibilities for better recycling of mixed plastics, avoiding the need for expensive/inefficient separation of the plastic waste stream. One such method is called compatibilization which uses special chemical bridging agents called compatibilizers to maintain the quality of mixed polymers.
Plastic bags can be recycled by melting and converting them into plastic tiles in villages at a very minimal cost.
Also, if the plastic is petroleum-based then it can be converted into fuels and carbons by using the plastic pyrolisis method. these materials can be used as raw material for plastic pyrolysis
- Mixed plastic (HDPE, LDPE, PE, PP, Nylon, Teflon, PS, ABS, FRP, etc.)
- Mixed-waste plastic from waste paper mills
- Multi-layered plastic.
- NB.many info was collected from Wikipedia and some from chemistry books.
