Technology Overview

This technology presents a method of recycling medical plastics by recrystallisation. The process involves first solubilising the plastic, followed by adding the right chemicals and/or solvents, creating an anti-solvent, to precipitate the crystals. The final step would be to separate the liquid from the crystals through simple filtration methods to produce pure plastic powder/crystals.

Since the onset of COVID-19 pandemic, there has been a significant increase in the amount of plastic waste, from medical use as well as from face masks used by people, to deal with the spread of COVID-19 virus. Since then, many methods have been employed in trying to reduce the plastic waste generated, and many are still being developed today.

This technology presents a simple method to recycle plastic waste, by regenerating the plastic material in powder form through a recrystallisation process. This process has a high yield and is able to create high purity recycled plastic powder. The technology has been tested on high density polyethylene (HDPE), polypropylene (PP) and polyethylene terephthalate (PET), commonly used plastics in the medical industry, and these recycled plastic powder can subsequently be reused as raw materials for other applications, such as packaging or medical products.

The company is seeking opportunities to collaborate with companies, to create a circular economy for medical plastic waste, through research collaboration, licensing, or joint ventures. They are open to work with partners who have the same vision as them—to create economic and environmentally impactful solutions for a better future.

Technology Features, Specifications and Advantages

This technology has the following features :

• Tested on HDPE, PP and PET based raw materials; PVC will be the next priority raw material for development using this technology
• Process temperature is dependent on the boiling point of the solvent used
• Uses organic solvents and anti-solvents which can be recovered for re-use in the same process
• Uses vacuum filtration
• High purity of plastic powder/crystals
• Able to achieve a yield of about 60%

Potential Applications

The technology owners have conducted studies on processing methods medical plastic waste and/or waste from masks used by residents in dealing with the spread of the Covid-19 virus. Inventors do investigations and developing new approaches to processing plastic waste above as well as to overcome the weaknesses of previous inventions so that they can overcome waste plastic from non-woven plastic products that at the time Covid-19 pandemic is widely used for personal masks as well as medical masks and other medical devices such as PPE medical clothes (personal protective equipment) by using and exploiting the characteristics plastic when in solution form.

This technology can be applied to the following industries :

• Plastic manufacturing
• Medical plastic packaging
• Medical plastic equipment

The technology owners are open to utilise this process to develop new applications or products in which the recycled and recystallised plastic powder/crystals can be applied to.

Customer Benefit

• Cost-efficient process with solvent recovery
• High yield
• Process recovers high purity powder, that enables the production of high-quality products
• Recovered solvents and anti-solvent can be recovered and re-used, reducing waste generated
• Lower the environmental impact from medical plastic waste generation