Recycling of plastics by solvent-targeted recovery and precipitation (STRAP)

Abstract

Disclosed herein is a method to recover constituent polymers in multilayer plastic films or mixed plastic wastes. The method comprises selectively dissolving a polymer in a solvent at a temperature, wherein the polymer is soluble, but other polymers in the multilayer plastic film or mixed plastic waste are not. The solubilized polymer is then separated from the multilayer plastic film or mixed plastic waste by mechanical filtration and precipitated by changing the temperature and/or adding a cosolvent. The process is repeated for each of the polymer component, resulting in a number of segregated streams that can then be recycled. Computational tools can be used to select solvent systems and temperatures that selectively dissolve different polymers from among all of the components.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.