Development of a solvent based recycling process for agricultural film

Agricultural films are a major source of low density polyethylene (LDPE) waste, which is challenging to recycle, as it is often multilayer and can contain pigments such as titanium dioxide (TiO₂) and carbon black. In this study a dissolution recycling process was developed, that was able to recover three outputs: LDPE, poly(ethylene-vinyl acetate) and TiO₂ from the waste stream with a single solvent, either xylene or limonene. After dissolution, the pigments were successfully removed through filtration. Polymer precipitation was induced by cooling and thus no antisolvent was required. The recovered polymers showed promising characteristics, with purities higher than 98 %, while the recovered TiO₂ showed a purity higher than 99 %. The prospective Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) revealed a total savings of 3.35 kg CO₂ equivalent per kg of film waste (for the case of black and white multilayer film) compared to incineration including energy recovery. Furthermore, a sensitivity study showed that the solvent management is crucial for the sustainability of the process.