Recycling Nylon

Recycling antifreeze Recycling nylon Recycling of ITDPE Recycling, plastics... 

Evergreen Nylon Recycling, a DSM/AlliedSignal joint venture, opened in November 1999. The plant will eonvert over 90,000 t/y of nylon 6 earpet waste into the raw material for nylon, caprolaetam. At the moment 450,000 tonnes of nylon 6 earpet waste is transported to US landfills each year. A fifth of this will be reeyeled in the new plant. The 45,000 tonnes of eaprolaetam that Evergreen Nylon Reeyeling will produee every year ean be used to make nylon 6 of the same quality and with the same properties as virgin nylon 6. 

BASF CANADA INC. DUPONT CANADA INC. EVERGREEN NYLON RECYCLING LLC RHODIA ENGINEERING PLASTICS... 

This fall, the closed-loop Evergreen Nylon Recycling plant will start up in the US, a joint venture of DSM Chemicals North America and AlliedSignal. The facility will recover 45,000 m.t./year of caprolactam by depolymerising the fibres from 100,000 m.t./year of discarded nylon-6 carpets. Meanwhile in Germany, Lurgi is building the Polyamid 2000 AG facility. It will process 120,000 m.t./year of carpet waste and recover 10,000 m.t./ year of caprolactam from nylon-6 carpets and 13,000 m.t./ year of nylon-6-6 from nylon-6-6 carpets. 

A Nylon recycle based on depolymerization via ammonolysis has been shown to be a technically feasible route for the recovery of high purity Nylon intermediates (1-6). In the ammonolysis process, the secondary amides of the Nylon (-6 and / or -6,6) fibers/polymers react with ammonia to break the Nylon chain and form a primary amide and an amine (Figure 1). The primary amide can subsequently be dehydrated to form a nitrile group. The net result is that the ammonolysis product is predominantly a mixture of four major components. 

In August, 2001 production at the Evergreen Nylon Recycling plant was suspended indefinitely. Higher than expected production costs combined with poor business conditions for caprolactam led the decision to suspend operations. The plant had been operating at about 60% of its capacity, and the venture determine that further capital investment will be required to improve the recycle production costs to make the plant competitive270. 

Production at Evergreen Nylon Recycling Suspended, DSM Corporate Communications, Heerlen, The Netherlands, August 30, 2001. (www.dsm.com/newsarchive)... 

Evergreen Nylon Recycling LLC, a joint venture between Honeywell International and DSM Chemicals, was in operation from 1999 to 2001. It used a... 

Most nylon recycling projects target carpet as the largest volume of nylon in MSW. Occasional programs are directed toward other waste streams. The Monofilament Recycling Project, initiated in Florida in 2001, collected monofilament nylon fishing fine in an effort to prevent some of the wildlife harm associated with discarded fishing fine. ... 

A limited amount of nylon recycling from appliances and antomotive parts is taking place as well. For example, DuPont is working on recycling radiator tanks and air intake manifolds into nylon materials for new tanks and manifolds ... 

Nylon recycling has increased substantially in the last several years. Most recycling efforts have focused on recovery of carpet. According to the U.S. Department of Energy, about 3.5 billion lb of waste carpet are discarded each year in the United States, with about 30% of them made from nylon 6. (For more on carpet recycling, see Sec. 12.4.15.) Recycling systems for condensation polymers, such as nylon and PET, can more effectively use chemical depolymerization techniques than can systems for addition polymers such as polyolefins and PVC. Most of the efforts directed at nylon recycling have taken this route. 

Evergreen Nylon Recycling LLC, a joint venture between Honeywell International and DSM Chemicals, was in operation from 1999 to 2001. It used a two-stage selective pyrolysis process. The ground nylon carpet, without separation, was dissolved with high-pressure steam and then continuously hydrolyzed with super-heated steam to form caprolactam. With a 100 thousand tons per year capacity, the program diverted over one hundred thousand tons of post-consumer carpet from the landfill to produced virgin-quality caprolactam. - ... 

Nylon recycling has been growing rapidly, with most efforts focused on recovery of carpet. Estimates are that the U.S.A. produces 450,000 tonnes per year of nylon 6 carpet waste, about 25 percent of all waste carpet. ... 

Other companies involved in nylon recycling, primarily for carpet, include Rhodia and Polyamid 2000 A.G. The Polyamid 2000 plant in Premnitz, Germany, mechanically recycles nylon 6,6 and depolymerizes nylon... 

Scheirs (1998) Nylon recycling, in Polymer Recycling Science, Technology and Application (Ed. Scheirs R) J. Wiley Sons, Chichester, pp. 287-302. 

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