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Innovative Concepts from BASF Color Solutions Simplify the Recoloring of Regrind for Plastic Recycled Materials

Brand Provided | By BASF | Published 5 years ago | About a 2 minute read

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BASF Color Solutions has developed attractive solutions in the production of color, additive and combination masterbatches for recycled materials
Special masterbatches quickly bring the regrind with variations in color shades to a target shade

Driven by the desire for closed material cycles and the economical use of resources, the recoloring of regrind for plastic recycled materials is gaining further importance, especially the economic reuse in the same application. The goal is to achieve a quality comparable to that of the coloration of new materials. This remains a challenge in particular due to the strongly fluctuating color shades of the regenerated material as well as aging phenomena of the used plastic. As a result, up until now a separate batch had to be adjusted for each batch of recycled material in order to achieve the target color shade and the desired material properties.

In order to accelerate this process, BASF Color Solutions has developed attractive solutions for and with its customers drawing from its many years of experience in the production of color, additive and combination masterbatches for recycled materials.

On the one hand, special masterbatches are offered, which quickly bring the regrind with variations in color shades to a target shade only by adjusting the dosage. Thus, a once-developed masterbatch can be used for different batches of regrind.

On the other hand, a solution based on a modular system was developed. Here, the customer himself mixes a suitable recoloring batch for the respective recycled material using a color formulation program of his choice. For this purpose, he is provided with a set of suitable mono batches, which, like the desired target colors, are stored in his program.

The customer only inputs the values of his current batch of regrind and directly receives the portions of the individual mono batches required for the desired color shade, so that the (time-consuming) color tone adjustment and subsequent production at a masterbatcher is not required.

With both solutions the customer can immediately start with the recoloring as the universally applicable products are already on his site, only dosage or proportions of the mono batches need to be determined. In addition, the customer is also more flexible in his choice of recycled materials that can be used. In contrast to specially developed "tailor-mades", there is no material unsuitable as regrind for other batches. Thus, the two concepts represent economically and ecologically advantageous variations of the recoloring of regrind.