rPET honeycomb is now commercially ready and available to license from EconCore. The company successfully conducted two years of research, learning how to optimally process the reusable resource-based polymer into its continuously produced honeycomb core.
EconCore
Recycled PET honeycomb now commercially viable using EconCore’s technology
rPET honeycomb sandwich panel
The benefit is a substantial fall in CO2, along with the already established CO2 reductions from the honeycomb technology in many transportation applications, due to the fuel and energy savings during the in-service use of lower weight products.
rPET honeycomb cores offer excellent potential using an eco-alternative core material. It also has superior temperature resistance and mechanical properties compared to conventional thermoplastic core materials.
The company’s rPET honeycomb core is typically made from more than 95 per cent recycled PET from a variety of sources such as bottles and food packaging. A cost-effective solution, it does not require much pre-production processing to achieve stable, temperature and strength performance, outperforming even PP honeycombs.
Wouter Winant, Technical Manager at EconCore, said: “Our technology is very flexible and has proven to work with many thermoplastics already. Adapting the technology to successfully use PET and rPET honeycomb is another great step forward. By adjusting the content of additives or fillers, we can optimise the performance characteristics.”
The ThermHex technology plays an essential role in enabling the use of honeycomb materials in cost-sensitive applications, including automotive and transport, building and infrastructure, and other applications wherein costs and weights must be reduced but strengths maintained or increased.
The bottle industry now re-uses transparent bottles, but that leaves an enormous amount of coloured waste PET. With EconCore’s technology, aesthetic considerations of the inner honeycomb core of sandwich panels are unimportant.
Winant added: “Everyone at EconCore is hugely supportive of finding ways to recycle and reuse plastic waste products. It is a massive global issue. EconCore can play a small role in solving part of that problem, through research and innovation, producing a cost efficient, better, stronger product, that we know will be attractive to many industry sectors.”