Coperion Starts Up Test Center for Optimizing Plastics Recycling

Coperion has successfully launched the operation of its Recycling Innovation Center in Niederbiegen, Germany. The test center will be able to host testing of every recycling process step — from material handling and feeding to extrusion, compounding, pelletizing, material postprocessing and deodorization. Extensively equipped recycling systems are available that can be modified in myriad ways, depending upon the specific requirements of the recyclate to be produced.

Coperion’s Recycling Innovation Center will enable customers to develop and test new, sustainable products and recycling processes together with Coperion’s experts. Photo Credit: Coperion

The new Coperion Recycling Center will complement the Herbold Meckesheim Test Center, where customers can simulate and test the mechanical pretreatment of plastic. Herbold Meckesheim has been part of Coperion’s Recycling Business Unit since 2022.

The new center is located directly adjacent to Coperions’ Bulk Solids Handling Test Center. First tests have been performed for customers, in which new products and recycling processes have been developed and tested. Coperion process engineers can modify the available recycling technologies such that the recompounds are manufactured with the highest efficiency possible while maintaining the level of product quality. The results achieved can then be scaled up to production level because of the constant base parameters of all Coperion technologies.

Coperion’s technological developments in plastics recycling have been integrated into the Recycling Innovation Center’s machinery and can be tested there. Examples include Coperion’s Fluidlift flash drying, Mix-a-lot solid mixing and ZS-B Megafeed side feeding solutions.

“The new Recycling Innovation Center shows how important it is for us to advance technology that helps our customers work toward more sustainability solutions and a functioning circular economy. The Recycling Innovation Center offers the ideal environment, both for our own research and development projects as well as for our customers, to master the challenges of plastics recycling,” says Frank Lechner, general manager of process technology and research & development at Coperion.