How to Choose an Odor-Free Recycled Blow Molding HDPE for Automotive

The use of recycled HDPE for blow molding is multiplying in companies that, until a few years ago, denied recycled material, brandishing it as a waste, a waste, of poor quality techniques, aesthetics and images.

Fortunately, many things have changed inside and outside companies, so that recycled blow molding HDPE has passed within a few years from an outcast to a product of great interest, both practical and in the media.

Without a doubt there have also been significant technical improvements on the plants that characterize the recycling production chain, so much so that many of the classic problems encountered in the use of HDPE recycled during the production of blown articles, have been partially resolved.

A different approach has also been achieved by both the purchaser of the raw material and the final consumer, who have lost the criticality related to an article made with recycled material.

But in the field of recycling there are still streams of HDPE that can present qualitative, aesthetic and odor problems.

In relation to the odor contained in the bottles to be recycled, post-consumer raw material used for the production of the blow molding granule, certainly the most persistent is the one that derives from detergents, in fact, despite washing the bottles to be recycled, even carefully, the surfactant odor remains almost indelibly.

If in the packaging sector the residual smell of detergent is increasingly tolerated, but in other sectors, such as the automotive one, it is a strong discriminant.

With a view to the circular economy, the use of post-consumer recycled HDPE granules has become a real need for the environment, as it is essential to reuse plastic as much as possible at the end of its life, to avoid it ending up in waste.

On the market there are neutral or opaque HDPE granules, which do not have inside them odors of detergent, food or other fragrances (or stinks), thus making them suitable for more professional use.

For example the air ducts in the automotive sector, can be made with recycled HDPE granules, but they must not attribute to the air that passes inside them , unpleasant or persistent odors.

The input of these granules consists of a mono plastic (HDPE only) which does not come into contact with other waste and therefore does not absorb any, during the cycle of storage, transport in bags and final recycling, the classic contaminations that give rise to the pungent and persistent odors of separate waste collection.

With these materials, neutral or opaque, you can blow air vents, or other parts in the automotive sector, which do not have odors on the finished product, succeeding to combine quality, circularity and technical requirements.

In any case, the incoming granules can be tested through a simple analysis on the footprint of the contained odors, through an ion mobility gas chromatography test, that in just 20 minutes can give us a photograph of the chemical components of the granules, in relation to possible odors during the blowing phases of the article or once placed in the vehicle.

These data released by the test are not empirical, like the test done with the nose by a group of people, but they are completely analytical, precise and irrefutable.

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Automatic translation. We apologize for any inaccuracies. Original article in Italian.