PolyMethyl MethAcrylate (PMMA) is a well-established polymer used in many industries of which about 300 kT of PMMA is produced in Europe every year, or close to 1 billion Euro of market value. Although PMMA can be turned back into its monomer by thermal depolymerisation, thus saving resources, water and CO2 emission, it is estimated that currently only 30 kT of PMMA waste from Europe is recycled annually of which less than 6 kT within Europe. There is a lack of quality recycling capacity for PMMA waste within Europe, which has become a more pressing problem since export markets closed their borders for polymer waste from Europe. Furthermore, recycling of PMMA is currently reliant on a lead-based process, which does not allow to reprocess poor quality PMMA waste with some form of contamination such as most end-of-life (EoL) PMMA waste, additives, fillers and/or composite/fibre waste.
MMAtwo brings high quality recycling capacity for PMMA waste to Europe. MMAtwo’s innovative concept for PMMA waste recycling through continuous, lead-free depolymerisation with a low energy footprint is able to handle both post-industrial and contaminated EoL PMMA waste and convert it into high quality regenerated MMA. The PMMA recycling process has been validated at a TRL7, enabling the possibility of commercialization soon after the end of the project (2022). LCA data have confirmed environmental benefits compared to the best scoring virgin MMA production process, the C2 process, as follows: 83% CO2 reduction, 99% water reduction, 94% fossil fuel use reduction.
The MMAtwo consortium of 16 partners from 7 countries represent the different steps in the PMMA waste value chain, as well as their academic and environmental impacts. Thus, besides developing a new concept for PMMA recycling, MMAtwo also creates a new value chain for PMMA waste in which producers, waste collectors, processors, end-users and the academic community all work together to accomplish a streamlined recycling of European PMMA waste whilst establishing a business model blueprint that can be copied to other continents as well.