Decontamination efficiency of a new post-consumer poly(ethylene terephthalate) (PET) recycling concept

The aim of the study was to investigate and evaluate the cleaning efficiency of a new recycling concept for post-consumer poly(ethylene terephthalate) (PET). The so-called Flake To Resin (FTR) recycling process produces PET pellets or preforms from conventionally recycled PET flakes for the application in new PET packaging in direct food contact. The investigated process can be considered as 'super-clean' recycling process and was developed to introduce conventional recycled post-consumer (PCR) PET flakes up to an amount of 50% into the pellet and preform production. Within the study the cleaning efficiency of the investigated FTR process was determined by a challenge test. The experimental results obtained from three challenge tests with different input concentrations of the surrogates and different amounts of post-consumer PET flakes show that all applied surrogates are very efficiently removed by the investigated recycling process. The cleaning efficiencies for all surrogates are above 99.9%. In the final product of the process no surrogates could be determined above the detection limits (0.5 mg kg(-1)) even if the initial concentrations were in the percentage range. From a migrational point the final product, which are either PET pellets or preforms, was similar to virgin PET. Only the PET typical substances acetaldehyde and ethylene glycol had slightly higher concentrations than found in a conventional PET virgin sample used as reference. The generally accepted migration limit of 10 microg kg(-1) for the surrogates in the final products of the challenge tests is established for all kinds of foodstuffs.