Innovation is key at Ad Rem: state-of-the-art plastics separation hub

Recycling technology specialist Ad Rem is constructing a test and development centre for plastic scrap in Menen, Belgium. The facility will be equipped with a sink-float separator and will sort various plastics using different methods.

The new facility will be built down the road from Ad Rem’s current offices. It will welcome the first visitors and launch customer trials at the beginning of next year, reports Jelle Saint-Germain, sales engineer at Ad Rem. A total of EUR 2 million will be invested in the venture.

Separating steps

The sorting process in Menen will start with a mobile feeding system for any rigid plastic mix. An air separation step will be included to extract light materials such as foam rubbers and textiles. These materials are used as RDF and should not enter the wet separation since they soak up the separation medium and that can cause issues.

Then, interchangeable screens sieve material at different sizes. Typically, fines smaller than 4mm are separated. The test and development centre will also house an offline shredder to resize material if necessary.

In the wet separation step, a downsized sinkfloat separator separates the plastics at different densities. The original geometry was retained as closely as possible, since industrial conditions must be simulated.

The separator has some modifications so the location of infeed can be changed and process parameters can be adapted. Once fully operational, throughputs of one tonne per hour will be attainable while current separators go up to eight tonnes per hour. Finally, the line will include a dryer for the outputs and big bag systems for storage.

Efficient design

Much thought has gone into the layout and capabilities of the plastics sorting hub. On the one hand, it has to be state-of-the-art and capable of processing customer samples. On the other, it has to remain flexible and easy to adapt the different parts of the process for research and optimisations.

‘With the current layout, a good compromise has been reached,’ says Saint-Germain. ‘The test and development centre will contain most of the process steps used also in a large plant but built in a modular way so different steps can be removed, skipped, modified or exchanged.’

Ad Rem is also looking to expand what is possible regarding analysis and quality control, both in-line and offline. ‘How that will be filled in exactly remains to be seen,’ Saint-Germain adds.

One thing he can share is the sampling device his team is working on. ‘We combined different spectroscopic technologies to determine the plastic type, as well as the embedded molecules, and we have automated this otherwise time-consuming process.’

‘This will enable plastic recyclers to take a sample of flakes and scan it automatically, telling them within the hour not only how pure their output is but also how much bromine or chlorine is present. Until now, this has been a research project but that’s come to an end and we expect our device to be commercially available by 2026.’

Analysis and optimisation

Aside from processing customer samples and trying out new methods, the test and development centre will also be used to optimise existing processes. For example, Ad Rem partnered with Belgium-based AM Team to perform computational fluid dynamics (CFD) analysis on the sink-float separator.

This enables a thorough analysis of the process flows inside the separator and allows the creation of a model which can be used to simulate changes in the process parameters and design of the system. A similar approach has already been successfully implemented for the Ad Rem heavy media plants, specifically for the metal separation drums, where misplacement of materials was reduced to nearzero.

Through further optimisation of the different process steps, Ad Rem hopes to increase the return for their customers. ‘The final quality of the outputs determines their value,’ says Saint-Germain. ‘Process stability, medium density consistency, automation and full control over the process is what makes the difference between selling your plastics back into the automotive industry for a good mark-up or ending up making plastic bricks or garden furniture.

‘The latter is much harder to remain profitable and it’s also less circular,’ he concludes.

Innovative mindset

With plastics recyclers regularly going out of business, it may seem counterintuitive to invest in the industry. ‘We don’t see it that way,’ insists Saint-Germain. ‘None of our existing systems has been shut down, despite the economic downturn for plastic recyclers. If you focus on the right products and create a highquality end-product, the value is there.’

The sales engineer is proud that Ad Rem secured a major grant this year from Flanders Innovation & Entrepreneurship (VLAIO) to support the new location. The VLAIO initiative was launched on 1 January and will run for two years.

Meanwhile, Valtech, (Ad Rem is a 50/50 joint venture between Valtech and Galloo), has recently finished the construction of a new building. The building is a 6 000 m² facility that houses Valtech staff, Ad Rem and sister company Motus Handling in 1 400 m² of office space. With the construction of the workshop, came Ad Rem’s need for more processing and testing capacity.

‘The construction of our new building in Menen presented a great opportunity for us to go forward with our testing facility,’ says Saint-Germain. ‘As we are expanding with Valtech, it made a lot of sense to include this project in the plans.’

The designated space entails 140 m² for the wet part of the process, 100 m² for the dry part, and 45 m² of lab space. On top of that, about 1 000 m² of construction, assembly and storage space will be added for Ad Rem.

Plastics pioneer

At parent company Galloo, plastics have been recycled since the 1990s. Part of it is WEEE plastics, including fridges and small domestic appliances, but the main business lies in automotive shredder residue (ASR), a notoriously hard fraction to recycle. This is where the Galloo/Ad Rem process truly shines.

‘What Galloo does is take a very polluted and mixed fraction, extracting and cleaning the PP, and turning it into pellets to sell back to the automotive industry,’ explains Saint-Germain. Galloo is involved with Stellantis in a joint venture company, SUSTAINera Valorauto, to manage the takeback of end-of-life vehicles (ELVs) in Europe.

‘Recycled PP from Galloo is not only found in Stellantis cars but in several other large car brands. In Japan, a Toyota Tsusho subsidiary company called Planic is using the Ad Rem process to recycle their ASR plastics locally.’ As well as PP, PE, PS and ABS are also recovered and recycled.

WEEE and ASR are not the only applications for Ad Rem’s plastic separation technology. With the new test and development centre, it will be possible to tap into other markets. ‘We get regular requests from the construction and demolition sector but so far we’ve always arrived at a dead end, mainly because we don’t know how these different materials are going to behave in our process.’

Other examples include PVC recycling. For WEEE or ASR, the target plastics float in the sink-float process but with PVC, the valuable materials are in the sinking fraction and the pollution can theoretically be floated off.

‘This cannot be tested on our existing installations without severely disrupting the operations of our customers’ plants,’ notes SaintGermain. ‘For applications like this, our test and development centre will come in very handy.’

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