“Campine investigates how to reinsert Antimony Trioxide in the chain, which will certainly reduce the footprint of the brand-new products”

Interview with Hilde Goovaerts, Manager Operational Excellence, and Karen Janssens, Product Manager Specialty Chemicals at Campine

What does Campine do?

Campine NV produces flame retardant masterbatches, for electric and electronic, and automotive applications. Campine is also a producer of Antimony Trioxide, an important synergist in flame retarding of plastics.

Why is Campine taking part in Plast2BCleaned?

A major goal of Campine is using secondary raw materials, making the world less dependent on material critical sources. Furthermore, our goal is to reduce energy consumption in the production chain. Closing the loop (in this case for antimony trioxide) is a key aspect to achieve this. And here we are very proud to say that Campine is a market leader, as we are the only recycler of antimony trioxide in Europe.

The masterbatches that we are launching today to the market are perfectly usable for mechanical recycling.

In the past, antimony trioxide was combined with Persistent Organic Pollutants or POP’s (additives which are not allowed in recycled plastics anymore). Therefore, the plastics that return nowadays in the Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment fractions will be purified from bromine, antimony trioxide, and possibly other additives. Campine would like to contribute to that, for them not to end in the landfill.

How does Campine contribute to the project?

Being in the plastic business for more than 25 years now, Campine can contribute a pile of general knowledge regarding the deployed products or flame retardancy in general. This information is very important for generating the PLAST2bCLEANED process. Besides that, there are granulates with well-defined compositions, which serve as a basis to calibrate the process and therefore to be able to draw up a mass balance.

The recovered antimony trioxide will be combined with a lot of impurities (remnants of the dissolution process, but also other additives out of plastics). Campine investigates the antimony and how it can be re-inserted as fast as possible in the chain. This will certainly reduce the footprint of the brand-new products. Campine verifies as well how the Life Cycle Analysis will evaluate.

How Campine co-operate internally?

Our team is perfectly built, collectors, additives, suppliers, users of recycled plastics… All of them work together efficiently to obtain a real demonstration of the new process. Monthly information transactions combined with clear tasks pay off. The first amount of recovered antimony trioxide is in research at this very moment. 

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