Nationaal Testcentrum Circulaire Plastics

We were happy to support HPRC in their study on the recovery of valuable plastic from hospital packaging waste.

We had a good start of the new year with our very first PhD candidate starting on the Prosper Bioplastics project in collaboration with Ghent University. Natalia Nowak will work on the reprocessing of biobased plastic packaging waste to make it suitable for either chemical or mechanical recycling. Welcome to the team! #circularplastic #recycling #bioplastics

Great work in the InReP project!

We are proud to share our latest findings on losses and emissions in polypropylene recycling from household packaging waste in the LEmPlaR consortium project, which are now published in Waste Management. As a part of the research, we mimicked the industrial recycling process of rigid PP packaging using the reprocessing facilities at NTCP. We checked the layout against consulted high-quality industrial installations recyclers in the Netherlands to ensure it our installation closely resembled a real-size process. Using these setups, we performed trials with many sampling points for different intermediate and output streams. This includes product, residue, and water samples. This is not yet common in industry, where often only output streams are sampled. Together with TNO and Wetsus, European Centre of Excellence for Sustainable Water Technology, we developed practical analytical tools to quantify yield, losses, contaminants, and emissions to air, water, and solid waste using existing laboratory techniques. We distinguished air, water, and solid samples for this quantification. You can read the publication here: https://lnkd.in/eTefaCnm. A big thanks goes to our partners Danone, Van Dam Machine, Citeo, HTP GmbH & Co. KG, Lindner Washtech, Sun Chemical, ISPT - Institute for Sustainable Process Technology, and Verpact. This work was supported by TKI Energie en Industrie. More information about LEmPlaR can be found on https://lnkd.in/eG-7u3us

We were happy to host the sustainability team of Danone at our facilities in The Netherlands. We had an inspiring session on circularity of (plastic) packaging.

Her Royal Highness, Queen of the Netherlands, Máxima visited NTCP today! We were very honoured and pleased to welcome her in our facilities as part of her Friesland tour organised by Circulair Friesland to learn more about the circular economy, and at NTCP on circular plastics in particular. The interactive discussions and sincere curiosity of the Queen during the visit and demonstration of our unique facilities were very inspiring. In two roundtable discussions we explained how a local project turned into an international knowledge centre. The first roundtable gave the opportunity for regional and national stakeholders that have been involved at the start of NTCP to explain on one hand how a local initiative became reality and on the other hand what the importance of cooperation within the ecosystem around circular plastics is. Participants at this table represented Provincie Fryslân (Friso Douwstra) , Omrin (John Vernooij) and Verpact (Hester Klein Lankhorst). The second roundtable discussion was focussing on the current leading international position that NTCP has grown into in a short time. NTCP is an internationally recognised centre of excellence, largely due to its independent position in the complete plastic chain. Representatives of key stakeholders in this chain, Marie-Catherine C. of Danone and Gerben Meier of LyondellBasell, participated in this discussion and explained the Queen how the expertise and results of NTCP supports them to make the decisions regarding the design and recycling of packaging materials and the international relevance and importance of the institute within the value chain in general. Royal House of the Netherlands, Ministerie van Infrastructuur en Waterstaat #queen #maxima #circularplastics #plasticrecycling

Do you want to get your PhD on circular (bio-based) plastics? If you are experimentally gifted and are driven by sustainability, join us in the PROSPER project https://lnkd.in/etdaGRHu . Check if you match the profile and directly apply here: https://lnkd.in/ekNgFMjp #circularplastics #biobasedplastics #recycling #circulareconomy #research #PhD #vacancy

MoQuP-R to explore quality monitoring along the plastic recycling chain The Dutch National Growth Fund programme Circular Plastics NL has granted a subsidy of 1.9 million euro to cofinance the 2.6 million euro research project Monitoring Quality in Plastic Recycling (MoQuP-R). The project consortium consists of the circular plastic research institute Nationaal Testcentrum Circulaire Plastics, Maastricht University, TNO, LyondellBasell, Danone, Graham Packaging International, and Verpact. The project will run for three years from September 2024. Plastic packaging recycling goals have not received focus on recyclate quality which is partly due to the way recycling rates have been calculated until 2022: any material stream coming out of a plastic sorting plant is considered recycled independent of the actual subsequent recycling process. This is now slowly changing with measuring the so-called washed and dried flake but is still far from complete and definitely not yet suitable for PCR quality prediction. In this project, we focus on the necessary quality monitoring tools and the application of existing models related to the prediction of recyclate quality in order to increase the use of PCR in packaging. An integral approach should allow adjustment along the circular value chain to improve PCR quality. More information on the project can be found at https://lnkd.in/eDUKm78J and will be presented at the CPNL Project Launch on 28 May: https://lnkd.in/e7Es2PAb. #circulareconomy #plastics #recycling #groeifonds

We are extremely proud to announce that we are entering the next development phase of NTCP. Based on our knowledge position and the urgency in the market, the Dutch government is investing 12 million Euros from the National Growth Fund programme Circular Plastics NL (CPNL) for expansion of NTCP's research facilities and capabilities. Our expansions involve new equipment for our current sorting and washing setups, like additional sorting technologies including AI and extra sorting loops. For the washing we foresee major improvements to be achieved in the search for the right cleaning methods in which energy consumption, the use of cleaning agents and the formation of microplastics must be minimized. Furthermore, we will install advanced equipment and new experimental test-beds that will be used to investigate and develop optimal characterization and treatment processes to support technology and process developments of the future. More information: ntcp.nl/nl/nieuws #circularplastics #CPNL #Innovation #sorting #recycling #research #development

Do you want to contribute to the recycling of bio-based plastics? We have a PhD candidate position open for the EU Horizon project PROSPER. Apply here: https://lnkd.in/ekNgFMjp #circularplastics #recycling #research #PhD #vacancy