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Plastics Recycling: A Comparative Study of Different Analytical Techniques
Summary
This study compared multiple analytical techniques for identifying and quantifying mixed post-consumer plastic waste, finding that solid-state 13C NMR outperformed conventional near-infrared methods by precisely distinguishing polyolefin types—including different polyethylene subtypes—and accurately quantifying plastics in mixed waste samples.
ABSTRACT Plastic waste has become a critical challenge threatening our environment and survival. There has been a growing demand for recycling methods to process waste into clean virgin‐like material. However, one of the key challenges limiting recyclability is the difficulty in accurately identifying different types of plastics in post‐consumer kerbside waste. Commercial sorting of collected waste relies primarily on near infrared technology, which is associated with significant limitations. Herein, we compared a range of analytical techniques to identify different post‐consumer plastic waste samples. With the finding that 13 C solid state NMR can precisely identify different polyolefins, we explored the possibility of employing 13 C solid state NMR for quantification of plastics from mixed waste samples, which can be quite difficult to quantitate using other standard techniques. Our results demonstrate that 13 C solid‐state NMR is highly efficient in the quantification of polyolefins from different controlled mixtures. For identification, DSC and NMR are methods of choice with the most clear differences between different polymers, with the exception of different polyethylene subtypes being more suitable for NMR analysis.