Coperion Recycling Innovation Center is Up and Running

Coperion has successfully launched operation of its new Recycling Innovation Center. In this high-tech test center for plastics recycling applications, every recycling process step – from material handling and feeding to extrusion, compounding, pelletizing, material postprocessing and deodorization – can be tested. 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 new Recycling Innovation Center is the perfect complement to the Herbold Meckesheim Test Center, where customers can simulate and test the mechanical pretreatment of plastic, allowing customers to experience first-hand the significant reduction in organic impurities by using Herbold Meckesheim's hot washing system, as an example. Herbold Meckesheim has been part of Coperion's Recycling Business Unit since 2022.

The Recycling Innovation Center is located in Niederbiegen near Weingarten, Germany, directly adjacent to Coperion's existing Test Center for Bulk Solids Handling. Along with proprietary research and development projects, first tests have been performed for customers, in which new, sustainable 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 a consistently high level of product quality. The results achieved can then be effortlessly scaled up to production level thanks to the constant base parameters of all Coperion technologies.

"The new Recycling Innovation Center shows how important it is for us to advance technology that helps our customers work towards 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", said Frank Lechner, General Manager of Process Technology and Research & Development at Coperion.

"With this new Recycling Innovation Center, we're in a position where we can simulate the entire plastics recycling process. Our customers can test the complete process, from mechanical pretreatment of plastics in Herbold Meckesheim's Test Center up to compounding and pelletizing, prior to making the investment. As a supplier of entire recycling systems, we are very proud to be able to offer our customers this enormous added value", said Massimo Serapioni, General Manager of Coperion’s Recycling Business Unit.