Process for recycling laminated polymer packaging comprising aluminium

A process for recycling laminated polymer packaging comprising aluminum, said packages comprising a plurality of polymeric layers comprising polyethylene, polypropylene and polyethylene terephthalate, characterized in that it comprises the following steps:

• (a) crushing in a wet or dry fashion and preliminary washing of the laminate polymeric packages comprising aluminum, forming crushed laminate polymeric packages in the form of particles and/or fragments with dimensions between 50 microns and 5 cm;
• (b) transferring the crushed laminate polymeric packages to a reactor, in which the amount of aluminum present in said crushed laminate polymeric packaging comprises is from 0.01% to up 40% of the total mass of packaging present in the reactor;
• (c) applying of a volume limiting screen to the reactor, positioned at the top of the reactor, in the alkaline solution and above the volume filled by the crushed laminated polymer packaging, wherein said volume limiting barrier comprises openings of up to 01 cm;
• (e) immersing said crushed laminate polymeric packages in an aqueous alkaline solution, forming a first solution, wherein the aqueous alkaline solution comprises a strong base at concentrations between 1 and 50% by mass/volume, wherein the amount of strong base comprises the range between 1.0 and 5.0 kg for each kg of aluminum present in the reactor;
• (h) temperature adjustment of the first solution to values between 35 and 90° C., when the crushed laminate polymeric packages comprise aluminum as an aluminum foil;
• or said temperature is adjusted o values between 35 and 95° C., when the crushed laminate polymeric packages comprise aluminum as a metallization layer;
• (i) selective dissolution reaction of aluminum in the first solution, between 30 minutes and 6 hours, forming a second solution comprising polyethylene, polypropylene and polyethylene terephthalate fragments;
• (j) draining the second solution from the reactor, so that the fragments from step (i) are retained at the bottom of the reactor;
• (k) removing the fragments from the reactor and cleaning said fragments;
• (l) mechanical disaggregation of the fragments of step (k), forming disaggregated fragments;
• (m) decontamination of the disaggregated fragments, obtaining clean fragments based on polyethylene, polypropylene and polyethylene terephthalate, and transferring said clean fragments to a water tank for gravitational separation in the subsequent step (n);
• (n) gravitational separation of the cleaned fragments comprising polyethylene, polypropylene and polyethylene terephthalate, in the water tank;
• obtaining polyethylene and polypropylene fragments in the supernatant and polyethylene terephthalate at the bottom of the tank;
• removing and obtaining clean polyethylene and polypropylene fragments;
• removing and obtaining clean polyethylene terephthalate fragments;
• transferring the cleaned polyethylene and polypropylene fragments to the subsequent step (o);
• and transferring the cleaned polyethylene terephthalate fragments to the subsequent step (o);
• and
• (o) drying the clean fragments obtained according to step (n), obtaining recycled fragments of polyethylene, polypropylene and polyethylene terephthalate.