The annual Perseid meteor shower is underway “When Earth passes through these cascades of comet waste the bits of debris—which can be as small as grains of sand—pierce the sky at such speeds that they burst The Perseid meteor shower occurs when the Earth crosses the littered path of the 17-mile-wide Comet Swift-Tuttle During a typical annual Perseid meteor shower The best time to see the display is between 2am and dawn (Note the showers are not as bright in the Southern Hemisphere.) For the fullest experience when you’ll have about an hour of dark sky between 3am This shower is named for the constellation Perseus which is where the meteors will appear to originate but you ought to keep your field of vision as open as possible Binoculars and telescope are not recommended NASA suggests lying down on your back and allowing 30 minutes for your eyes to adjust to the dark when the celestial event of the year seeks your undivided attention nylon recycling could be alleviated by a giant new carpet recycling plant in Germany post-consumer nylon 6 carpets are piling up in the U.S due to lack of capacity for chemical recycling of the nylon back into virgin resin for automotive and other uses the German carpet recycling plant is running at well below capacity due to lack of material Carpet should have a lot going for it in recycling It’s one of the largest components of waste plastic going to landfills It’s largely made up of high value resin—nylon nylon 6 is relatively efficient to break down chemically into its original building block—caprolactam And because most used carpet is removed by contractors installing new carpet collection is available to big commercial waste haulers recyclers of post-consumer carpets had a marriage made in heaven collected and sorted used nylon carpets at a plant near Atlanta Wellman used the nylon 66 to make black injection molding compounds for automotive use Wellman sold the nylon 6 carpets to Evergreen Nylon Recycling The $100-million plant could chemically reclaim nearly 200 million lb/yr of nylon 6 carpet waste But Evergreen was mothballed indefinitely last August The company blamed higher-than-expected production costs That left Wellman without an outlet for the nylon 6 carpets it takes in Accumulation of those unused carpets threatens to put a crimp in Wellman’s collection and recycling of nylon 66 A shortage of nylon 6 carpet in Europe may offer a solution What is probably the largest nylon 6 carpet recycling facility now operating is at Polyamid 2000 in Premnitz PA 2000 was set up in 1999 to reclaim post-consumer carpet material from all over Europe using chemical depolymerization and repolymerization of nylon 6 and extrusion compounding of nylon 66 Three large German waste haulers began to collect used carpets for the program Collection then broadened to involve waste haulers in the Netherlands and more recently northern France and the U.K PA 2000 even got a shipment of over 4 million lb of separated nylon carpet from Evergreen Nylon Recycling in the U.S The huge PA 2000 installation cost around $200 million which was provided by the state government of Brandenburg in the former East Germany and a couple of German private investors PA 2000 occupies a 592,000-sq-ft plant that was the site of the first nylon production in Germany in 1942 (for parachutes) It produced virgin nylon up until the reunification of East and West Germany in 1990 Polyamid 2000 is now producing about 44,000 to 55,000 lb/day (15 million lb/yr) of nylon 6 The plant had expected to process roughly 264 million lb/yr of carpet into 20 million lb/yr of nylon 6 plus 26 million lb of nylon 66 and other engineering plastics “The content of nylon in European waste carpets is less than expected and decreases every year,” says Dr Recyclers had expected 30% of European carpet to be nylon 6 and another 30% nylon 66 they are finding 20% each of nylon 6 and 66 a two-year-old sorting operation set up by the carpet industry in Kerpen nylon carpet in Europe is only 25% face fiber and 75% backing carpet pile is much deeper—45% face fiber and 55% backing making the economics of nylon recycling more attractive That’s why German recyclers find U.S which operates an automated carpet-sorting center says that waste carpet collection became more difficult when landfill tipping fees got cheaper in Germany “When the carpet-recycling program started making recycling viable,” says Andreas Bohnhoff “Those fees went down by half to $45/ton Landfill must cost at least $75/ton for carpet recycling to be viable.” The latter problem will go away by itself in 2005 when a new German waste-management law comes into effect German waste haulers are trying to landfill as much as possible not recycle,” says CRE’s Bohnhoff as one source of nylon scrap to bridge the gap There is a lot of successful recycling of carpet tiles in the U.S. but collection and recycling of regular carpet is limited carpet industry just executed a memorandum of understanding among its members and several state governments agreeing to a voluntary increase in the level of carpet recycling So collecting carpet for export to Germany could—at least in the short term—support U.S fiber industry is keeping an eye on how well PA 2000’s technology works “They have a few technologies that are new including Raman spectroscopic identification and using waste incineration to generate heat for drying the nylon powder,” notes Mark Ryan manager of environmental initiatives at DuPont Co it’s hard to justify the size of their investment.” The PA 2000 plant boasts an elaborate automated material-handling system massive shredding and pulverizing capability and depolymerization reactors to return nylon 6 to caprolactam which is then purified and made into “near-virgin”-quality nylon 6 again begins by breaking incoming bales of carpet An operator then puts each piece of carpet individually in a clamp on a “wagon,” which travels up an incline to join an overhead transport system 60 ft in the air Each wagon has a bar code that identifies that piece of carpet throughout the process.The wagon takes its piece of carpet to one of eight “shower stations,” where a small high-speed water jet washes an area of carpet about the size of a quarter allowing an infrared spectrometer (from Bruker Optics Inc.) to identify the resin automatically This is believed to be Bruker’s only carpet-reclaim customer using Raman IR laser spectroscopy carpet reclaimers use Bruker’s NIR spectrometer with a hand-held probe The spectrometer categorizes the carpet substance as nylon 6 or “other.” The latter includes polypropylene and even old oriental carpets—all of which are shredded and incinerated in PA 2000’s steam-generating plant The steam is sold to the power plant next door which supplies electricity to PA 2000 and to the town the residual materials—calcium carbonate and various oxides and hydroxides—are sold to mineral processors for drying natural talc Nylon 6 carpet is shredded in one of three giant machines from Vecoplan Maschinengesellschaft (parent of Vecoplan LLC in the U.S.) One of the other two shredders is dedicated to nylon 66 and the remaining one to “other” carpet materials Shredded nylon 6 passes through a station for removal of ferrous and nonferrous metals and then through one of six pulverizing mills from Netzsch-Condux Mahltechnik GmbH in Hanau Pulverizers reduce the shredded fibers and backing to particles of less than 5-mm size That material goes to the first of two banks of eight centrifuges potassium carbonate is added to the water to raise the density of the solution to 1.2 g/cc That makes the latex-rubber carpet backing sink The rubber goes to an outside plant where it is made into construction materials Nylon 6 and PP fibers go into the second bank of centrifuges Leftover heat from incineration of “other” materials is used to dry the PP and nylon 6 after separation and sold for use in fiber-reinforced concrete panels The dried nylon 6 is pneumatically conveyed to a twin-screw extruder Molten nylon 6 from the extruder is sent to three depolymerization reactors Steam and phosphoric acid catalyst are added to the reactors breaking down the nylon 6 into caprolactam and water The mix is distilled twice to remove the water and yield caprolactam at 99.9% purity PA 2000 says its product will eventually be less expensive to produce than virgin nylon 6 because it’s made in only two steps—melting and reacting with steam—versus five reaction steps to make nylon 6 from crude oil Nylon 66 carpet travels on a separate track through shredding and centrifuging steps just like nylon 6 but in separate dedicated equipment Nylon 66 is melt compounded into black pellets that PA 2000 sells for injection molding Dear Plastics Technology Audience Member: PT will begin “gating” its premium content asking all new website users to provide some information about themselves — name email address — before they are provided free access to the content We are doing this because the ways PT’s audience finds and accesses our content is changing make it difficult to connect PT’s content with the people who might make use of it generative AI like ChatGPT is serving up PT content to internet users without attributing that content to PT it has become increasingly important for PT evolve its audience development strategy and learn as much as possible about who is accessing our content what content they are accessing and how they are accessing it PT plays a distinctive role and has earned a place of esteem within the focused and specialized industry it serves Large developments in the media landscape are forcing us to change the way we communicate with our audience We are confident that our audience values the role PT plays in their professional lives and will join us in this effort to stay connected to them We thank you for your continued interest in and support of PT and welcome any questions you might have about the brand’s new content gating strategy BERLIN - After being taken over by a Chinese State-owned company Germany's EEW Energy From Waste is on a steady growth track instead of holding doubts at the beginning EEW was taken over by China's State-owned Beijing Enterprise Group for 1.4 billion euros ($1.6 billion) in February 2016 It was the largest Chinese acquisition of a German company at that time It couldn't be better," said Bernard Kemper Europe's biggest company dedicated to waste incineration has 16 incineration facilities in Germany and two in neighboring countries with a capacity of processing around 4.7 million tons of waste per year for energy production they need to understand the German framework and market EEW had a Chinese shareholder," said Kemper But nothing had changed in EEW except gaining support from the Chinese shareholders In the past three years the Chinese shareholders approved several new major projects for expansion allowing the company to rebuild a line in Premnitz with 70 million euros and a plant near Hamburg with 115 million euros together with the shareholder we are able to grow The Chinese shareholder trusts the company and brings assets to the company and they allow and ask EEW to expand its new and existing business," added Kemper the staff was worried about the difference between a German company and a Chinese State-owned one "There is no difference between a German and a Chinese company in terms of management and the staff The staff is satisfied with this development and the status of the company," said Ronald Philipp Kemper said the new line in Premnitz will bring 25 million euros more turnover per year which is considerable for the quite stable industry EEW is now looking for expansion in neighboring European countries with the combination of German technology and the shareholder's channel in China EEW is now supporting two projects in China one in Beijing's suburb and another in the coastal tourist city of Beihai in China's southern Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region is designed to deal with 450,000 metric tons of waste per year EEW's technicians checked the designs of the Chinese projects and hold weekly exchanges with their Chinese colleagues EEW is also trying to give good example for German work that could be transported to China Beijing Enterprises' takeover of EEW came as China is focusing more on sustainable development and it is ambitious to treat its serious environmental pollution after decades of economic growth The Beijing Enterprises said after the takeover that it would learn Europe's advanced technology in a bid to improve China's environmental protection industry and make contributions to the country's sustainable development "They gave us a promise: you should grow in Europe and you should support us in China on our internal projects Refuse derived fuel (RDF) specialist Andusia is to supply 200,000 tonnes a year of fuel to German energy from waste (EfW) group EEW Andusia will begin supplying the RDF from this month (January) on a five year basis The contract award from EEW comes on top of an existing contract to supply EEW’s Delfzijl plant in the Netherlands EEW is owned by Beijing Enterprise holdings which has the city of Beijing Andusia believes the deal is likely to be the largest RDF export contract the UK waste industry has ever seen “comes due to the rising demand for green electricity across Europe largely associated with the global issue of energy security The 200,000 tonnes a year contract will supply RDF to six of EEW’s other facilities across Germany: Helmstedt EEW has 17 EfW in Germany and neighbouring countries and processes approximately five million tonnes of waste each year head of international sales at EEW said: “EEW are pleased to have signed this long-term “We are confident that we can build on our successful six-year relationship and work together to continue not only diverting waste from UK landfill but generating electricity and heat for households and businesses across Germany.” Methane emissions are a particular focus of attention in terms of climate protection Mr Karg added: “Methane emissions are a particular focus of attention in terms of climate protection because the greenhouse gas effect of methane is 25 times higher than that of carbon dioxide more than 170 million tonnes of CO2 could be saved if no more residual waste were landfilled throughout the EU over and above the targets already adopted Landfills rank third worldwide among methane emitters.” said: “We are delighted to start the year on such a high Andusia and EEW have enjoyed a prosperous business relationship since 2016 and we welcome the opportunity to continue our joint efforts in this long-term deal Mr Burton went on to say that he considered the deal strengthened the company’s standing “as the UK’s largest independent waste exporter” and would also help it realise a record-breaking year for the business come the end of the financial year Andusia was established in 2012 when the RDF export market was in its infancy it has become one of the UK’s largest independent exporters with a full supply chain solution for collecting and delivering RDF from UK producers to EfW plants in Europe 2018 saw Andusia collect its miillionth tonne of RDF waste for recovery Andusia reported its total export volume had hit 1.8 million tonnes Full contact information: HERE Get the latest waste and recycling news straight to your inbox We are using cookies to 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