Plastic Research and Development Projects

The BPF supports a number of valuable research and development activities in key areas where the plastics industry's knowledge base needs extending. Over the last year the BPF has continued to work hard to develop its project portfolio to benefit the industry by helping it create a competitive advantage, whilst becoming more sustainable. The BPF will continue to develop and project manage several projects; some will be generic for the UK Plastics Industry, whereas others will be sector specific.

More detail on each of these projects can be found below; with the common theme through-out each of these projects is for the plastics industry to increase its sustainable development and therefor matching UK and EU Government targets for reducing waste and increasing energy efficiency. The BPF will continue to develop its project portfolio to match the needs of the UK industry and encourage innovation in the plastics sector.

Themes covered by BPF projects include:

• Energy, energy consumption and energy legislation
• Rotational moulding
• Packaging
• Legislation
• Conductive polymers
• Foamed products
• Composites recycling

For more detailed information on any of the projects, please contact Tim Marsden at the BPF; +44 (0) 207 457 5000 or tmarsden@bpf.co.uk

ENER-Plast

ENER-Plast will carry on the excellent work done in the EuRECIPE project and aims to develop a 'Carbon Calculator' for use by the processing industry to better understand their carbon footprint. It is also developing tools that will enable processors to calculate their energy usage through the entire life cycle from Tool manufacture to end of life use of the product.

The objective of ENER-Plast is to provide the European polymer and its associated industries with the information, resources and tools needed to reduce their carbon footprint and environmental impact. Reports and full outcomes of the project will be available from the ENER-Plast WEBSITE.

This project has been part funded by the European Commission within the Intelligent Energy Europe Programme.

 EUPlastVoltage

The objective of this project is to prepare a voluntary agreement for the European plastics converting industry - bringing together best practice from across Europe - with the aim of creating a voluntary long-term agreement to promote energy-efficiency within the plastics sector. It is anticipated that a signed -off long-term agreement, with clear energy efficiency targets contained within it, would not only considerably help change behaviour within the plastics sector, but would also act as a pre-cursor and model for voluntary agreements in other manufacturing industries.

The project website can be viewed HERE.

Energy usage within the sector is of critical importance, as part of the broad EU agenda for sustainable development, the ambitions of national governments to encourage lower carbon economies and also in terms of managing fluctuating costs on a day-to-day basis. This project will have a direct impact on the sector's energy efficiency and will thus contribute to the EU's objective of 20% in energy savings by the year 2020. Energy efficiency in the plastics sector and energy efficient plastics are key themes which this project will look to address and develop.

This project has been part funded by the European Commission within the Seventh Framework Programmes and the Intelligent Energy Europe Programme.

For more information, please contact Tim Marsden; tmarsden@bpf.co.uk

ENERGYWISE Plastics 

 ENERGYWISE Plastics will develop an "e-learning platform" and various training materials for those working in the plastic processing industry, to learn and understand how to manage and reduce their energy consumption, thus in turn reducing the sectors carbon impact. Energy efficiency - and understanding energy - is clearly a 'hot topic' for all industries, including the plastics sector. The project website can be viewed HERE

The Project Consortium brings together a wealth of expertise and knowledge from across the European Plastics Processing sector, including specialists in training, energy management and polymer supply chain. All partners have a high public profile.

This project is kindly supported by The Leonardo Lifelong Learning Programme.

For more information, please contact tmarsden@bpf.co.uk

iPolyCond

The overall objective of iPolyCond is to develop a series of training materials and resources for the benefit of the European Plastics Converting Industry, to increase their knowledge base and understanding of conductive plastics materials / conductive polymers. You can view the project website HERE.

iPolyCond will focus on the needs of SMEs especially and provide industry with the tools and resources for effectively improving their skills sets, knowledge base, competitiveness and indeed, innovation in the conductive polymers sector.

For more information, please contact tmarsden@bpf.co.uk 

 Polymer REACH (P-REACH)

The overall objective of P-REACH is to develop an e-learning platform and training materials for the European polymer industry to learn and understand how to manage their obligations under the European legislation, REACH. The project will use a 'blended learning' approach, offering interactive on-line modules and traditional 'paper-based' materials, focusing on the needs of SMEs. The Polymer REACH website can be viewed HERE.

The main result will be an industry specific e-learning platform and training materials (available in 7 languages) for the industry to learn how to manage their obligations under REACH. The overall impact will be an increase in the knowledge base of the polymer industry on REACH, which will in turn help to increase competitiveness and sustainability of the sector.

This project is kindly supported by The Leonardo Lifelong Learning Programme.

 LIGHTFOAM

The project - Novel Moulding Technology for the Production of Low Density Foams Based on Innovative Granule Technology - aims to create a process wherby polymer granules cab be infused with nitrogen gas to be used in the injection moulding process to create foamed parts. This will be done without the need for any additional modification to the machinery

This concept is anticpated to reduce the energy requirements associated with traditional processing of engineering grade thermoplastics by 15%. Using selected high strength engineering polymers with high levels of flame retardancy and low levels of smoke toxicity will achieve lower densities in the resulting foamed products than are possible today.

This project has been part funded by the European Commission within the Seventh Framework Programme.

For further information, please contact Tim Marsden; tmarsden@bpf.co.uk.

UltraFibre

The new project, UltraFibre, adds to the BPF's projects portfolio, which now totals 11. The full-title of the project is the "development of a radial cell process for the clean, continuous, high volume production by hydro-acousitc decortication of high quality natural fibres for the SME natural fibres sector."

Please see the PROJECT WEBSITE for further information

 RotoFlex

This project is based upon an innovative development to improve cycle times and process efficiency whilst facilitating greater flexibility in product design and integrity for the SME-rotomoulding sector.

For instance, one of the aims of the project is to decrease the processing cycle time by as much as 30% through automated feeding in the loading, heating, cooling, demoulding cycle. This automatic feed system that can be retrofitted to standard rotomoulding machines that will confer 30% reductions in cycle time, with anticipated 30% energy savings.

This project has been part funded by the European Commission within the Seventh Framework Programme.

For further information, please see the RotoFlex website. 

 CAPSCRAP

The project aims to address concerns hindering scrap reuse in major injection moulding sectors such as packaging, PET bottles, and engineering polymer systems such as PEEK and PPSU. CAPSCAP seeks to provide solid data to eliminate the existing unsupported theories where reuse in many polymer systems still remains un-researched.

The project wants to go even further and develop a methodology to prevent scrap being created in the first place through closer monitoring of the melt, in the injection moulding process. This will be achieved by employing an in-line monitoring system developed at Exeter University.

For further information, please contact Tim Marsden; tmarsden@bpf.co.uk

EU RECOMP

The overall objective of the project is to develop and promote the solvolysis process as a suitable route for recycling and re-use of thermoset-based composites production wastes and end of life products. The project, achieving a cost-effective waste treatment will allow industrial end-users (European thermoset-based composites manufacturers), to fulfil the incoming environmental and waste disposal related European normative. Composites is a key growth area for the plastics industry moving forward into the 21st century, with their wide ranging applications in advanced technogies, such as aerospace. Recycling - especially of composites - is a key area for the sector.

This project has been part funded by the European Commission within the Seventh Framework Programme.

For further information, please contact Tim Marsden; tmarsden@bpf.co.uk 

VinylSUM  - Sustainable Use of Materials

The VinylSUM network, originally funded by the EPSRC under the ‘Sustainable Use of Materials’ initiative, was set up in April 2004 to help address some of the sustainability challenges facing PVC.

The objectives of the network continue to be: -

• To facilitate a forum for a stakeholder-wide discussion of the research required to improve the sustainable use of PVC.
• To identify and propose suitable research proposals and link with appropriate funding opportunities.
• To become a source of impartial information to all stakeholders.

 Further information can be found on the PROJECT WEBSITE