BY

R.Prasanth

 Recycling is processing used materials (waste) into

new products to prevent waste of potentially useful

materials, reduce the consumption of fresh raw
materials, reduce energy usage, reduce air pollution
(from incineration) and water pollution (from
landfilling) by reducing the need for "conventional"
waste disposal, and lower greenhouse gas
emissions as compared to virgin production.
Recycling is a key component of modern waste
reduction and is the third component of the
"Reduce, Reuse, Recycle" waste hierarchy.

The major steps involved in recycling

Nylons are,
Identifying the source
Segregation of waste Nylon products
Separating from impurities
Size Reduction
Depolymerization
OR
Processing the waste directly to
pellets

Nylon waste arises from various products, but

not all are easily recycled, the ones which can
be easily recycled are as follows,
Nylon fishnet scraps
Nylon carpet wastes
Nylon fiber or yarn waste
Nylon waste generated during
polymerization and few other automobile
parts made out of Nylon can be recycled. Nylon
tyrecord being adhered to the rubber of the
tyre is very difficult to separate. Old carpets
may also be used as a feedstock to produce
other products, such as auto parts, plastic
lumber, parking stops, and carpet pads.

The waste nylon products are bought for a

very low cost and dumped in a place to be

recycled later.
All the waste materials are identified and
collected from various places and stored for
recycling purpose

 Before being processed or sent for

depolymerization the waste polymer must be

separated from impurities like metals or even
some times other polymers or some other
impurities.
This is done in order to maintain the efficiency of
the process and so that the material and the
recycling effort should not be wasted.
If such impurities are present they will lower the
mechanical properties of Nylon and thus make it
unusable.

It is not possible to feed the whole plastic

waste as such to the extruder or the

reactor.
Hence it is being reduced to smaller size in
size reduction machines.
The smaller size Nylons can be easily
processed in the extruder.

Now we are going to see two MNCs

as an example on behalf of Nylon waste
recycling on the concern of
Depolymerization.
The first industry being BASF(Badische
Anilin- und Soda-Fabrik).
This plant is in Arnprior. They manufacture
Nylon 6 which is being used for carpet
applications as well as other engineering
applications. The waste this industry uses
for recycling is Nylon carpets.

The next industry is SRF Ltd ( Sri Ram

Fibers ) which is in Manali.
SRF manufactures Nylon 6 which is being
used for various applications such as
tyrecord and automobile parts.
The recycling material that they use are
Waste Nylon Fishnets
Waste Nylon 6 polymer

The process of depolymerization

involves a series of steps, they are as
follows,
Waste feed
Melting
Cracking
Chemical Treatment
Distillation

 Melting :

The waste nylon after being feed is melted

in a reactor at 260-270C to form a melt.
Cracking :
To the melt steam at 400C is passed
inorder to crack the polymer nylon to form the
monomer caprolactum.
The catalyst used for cracking is ortho phosphoric
acid (H3PO4).
Chemical Treatment :
As the monomer is obtained from waste
nylon its colour will be brown or dull yellow
colour. Hence chemical treatment must be
done. Potassium permanganate and carbon is
passed through the monomer to remove
oxidisable impurities to improve colour.

 Distillation :

The monomer will be mixed with

water and hence the mixture is distilled to
separate the monomer caprolactum and
water.

In some cases depolymerization is not

required for recycling.
In those cases the waste nylon is been size
reduced and feed in to an extruder.

The extruder melts the waste polymer and

gives in form of molten strands which is

cooled using a cooling bath arrangement
and cut in to small pieces using a pelletizer.

 Recycling is the term which is going to play

a vital role in conservation of the world.

Recycling becomes the responsibility of
each and every individual in this earth.
There are a lot of recycling methods and
recycling centres being developed for each
and every thermoplastic material, everyone
of us should use the facility to benefit out
of it.