PVDC multilayer sorting challenge: A spectroscopy study and on field application

Abstract

Nowadays one of the main challenge in the effective application of a plastic circular economy and overall energy and raw material recovery is the capability of doing selective sorting. The sorting process is the first and important step to obtain homogeneous fluxes of waste materials, which can be utilized as feedstock for raw material recovery, oil based material generation or for energy production. There are many activities for solving the challenges of sorting complex objects in a general waste stream; in this study we used Vibrational Spectroscopy and the most recent NIR technologies to demonstrate the sortability of multilayered samples containing PVDC layers. The NIR results find scientific baseline in the fundamental normal modes observed in IR and Raman spectroscopy and the relative discussion and assignments. The on field success of the sorting tests open the way for advancement in the technologies aimed at achieving a sustainable and economically viable approach to polymer production.