RecComp 4.0: Blockchain for Recycled Plastics Quality Assurance

RecComp 4.0 employs Blockchain technology to ensure quality assurance and traceability in the recycling of thermoplastic materiels.

The RecComp 4.0 project seeks to respond to the urgent need to establish traceability and control of the compounding process of recycled thermoplastic material in order to ensure a quality equivalent to the current original raw materials from fossil sources.

The RecComp project proposes research into Blockchain technology associated with the problem of plastic recycling and the new formulation of plastic material.

To meet these characteristics, it is necessary to integrate advanced digitalisation mechanisms that are intertwined with Blockchain systems, which anticipate and guarantee the traceability of the information.

BLOCKCHAIN technology has been postulated as one of the most effective technologies for ensuring the traceability of electronic transactions, but it also has great potential to be applied to any sector to determine the traceability of information. This technology will allow companies that provide services, such as the plastics sector, to provide true and certified traceability of recycling activities and new formulations of the compound of transformed plastics

What is RecComp 4.0?

RecComp 4.0 is a project in which blockchain technology will be used in the plastics sector, ensuring the quality of machine-generated and personnel-generated data, as well as increasing the efficiency and traceability of the entire chain of information generated.

RecComp 4.0 Objectives

he main objective of the project is to respond to the urgent need to establish traceability and control of the compounding process in order to ensure a quality equivalent to current raw materials from fossil sources. To define a methodology and additional suitable instrumentation to assist the treatment and formulation process of the recovered plastic materials (extrusion compounding process), in order to ensure the closest possible approximation and quality to the material required for the current products to be manufactured.

Technological objectives:

Promote a local circular economy that avoids dependence on the current variables of the global economy and allows the promotion of a new local ecosystem economy.
To make available recycled plastics suitable for the requirements of industry.
Promote the development of data collection and processing technologies applied to:
Input material treatments. Characterisation of materials.
- The compounding process by extrusion to obtain new recycled materials suitable for use in certain transformation processes and aimed at meeting certain properties of the new target part.
- The process of real-time data collection and management of behaviour and alerts that allow us to anticipate deviations in the process.
- During quality analysis and to determine the trend of certain control parameters in real time.
- Providing new tools to the industry, such as equipment sensors and environmental sensors, which allow them to secure and give value to the recovered materials. Knowledge of the process and the necessary data to introduce in the measurement tools for environmental indicators.
Avoidance of large movements of raw materials. Buying from local suppliers saves on travel, materials, energy and allows for an adequate carbon footprint.
Promote local suppliers that allow the management and adaptation of formulations in a close and personalised way to the specific needs of the surrounding processing industries.
This favours an ecosystem that provides stability to employment and the social environment in a local way.
Apply new regulations and certifications that make it possible:
- Order the legislative environment in the face of the legislative insecurity generated by the current hyper-regulation defined by each of the autonomous communities in Spain.
- To reflect and know the level of quality of the new recovered materials.