Ticona plastics recycling concept awarded for innovation

The new recycling concept for Celstran + long-fiber-reinforced thermoplastic from Ticona has won an innovation award in the environment category from the Federation of Reinforced Plastics (Industrievereinigung Verstärkte Kunststoffe AVK e.V.).

The award was presented at the 9th International AVK Conference on September 19 in Essen, Germany.

Recycling right from production stage

In the Celstran recycling concept, recovery of valuable materials used in the manufacture of structural components starts right from the production stage. It has previously been the practice for processors themselves to regrind production scrap from long-fiber-reinforced thermoplastics in-house and return it to the original production process. However, they then run the possible risk of variations in the processing behavior of the material and property profile of the finished part.

This is no longer the case with the Celstran recycling concept, which is being used for the first time in the production of the dashboard support for the VW Golf 5 and the Golf 5 Plus. Ticona takes back the punching and start-up scrap after it has been processed by suitably qualified recycling companies and adds it to virgin long-fiber-reinforced thermoplastic (LFT) material in an optimized pultrusion process. At the end of the process, high-quality Celstran pellets are obtained, which are then processed into dashboard supports.