A French Network of Expertise in Plastics Recycling
Géraldine Gouhier
Sandrine Hoppe
The “Carnot”: research for business innovation
The Carnot Institutes are French public research structures accredited for their ability to conduct partnership research projects for business innovation. The label, created in 2006, is awarded by the French Ministry of Research. Today, the network includes 39 structures of all sizes involved in ten major fields, several of which are related to the ecological transition (environment, energy, transport, marine industries, chemistry/materials/construction). These 39 institutes represent 20% of public research staff and carry out 55% of the R&D contracts outsourced by companies to French public research, for a total turnover of €527M. Since 2016, groups of institutes have been proposing "industry" offers to meet the needs of companies as closely as possible, particularly SMEs or ETIs that do not spontaneously go to public research. These collective offers have already proven their multiplier effect: between 2015 and 2019, they contributed to an 85% increase in the volume of contracts with SMEs in eight different sectors.
The Carnot Institutes Association have been organizing meetings since 2013 to develop partnerships between research laboratories and environmental companies. An edition dedicated to the Plastics and Packaging theme was held at the end of 2019 and resulted in a collection of 48 R&D offers presented by 12 Carnot and grouped into four major themes (bio-based, eco-design, recycling, new formulations). “But we didn't want to stop there, explains Jacques Larrouy, head of corporate relations at AICarnot. That's why we decided to propose a joint forward-looking offer, as an extension of our strategy of sectoral offers, but on the broader subject, beyond packaging, of recycling of all plastics”.
This requires a complete inventory of Carnot skills and expertise. The approach is mainly supported by two specialists who provide scientific support in their respective fields: Géraldine Gouhier of I2C (chemistry) and Sandrine Hoppe of ICEEL (process engineering). “We have chosen to focus on major technological locks in order to show that the Carnot have the skills to solve these problems together and to help companies move forward”, says Géraldine Gouhier. No less than seven barriers have been identified on the entire life cycle of plastics, from design to recovery and recycling methods (see box).
“This inventory work is interesting on several levels, adds Sandrine Hoppe: it offers greater visibility of Carnot skills to industrialists and allows us to exchange with the entire sector by unifying the interdisciplinary expertise of Carnot, in a real shared vision”.
In the end, thanks to this collective and structured offer, industrialists will know who they can contact according to their specific problems related to plastics recycling.
Towards plastics marking?
One of the major problems in plastics recycling is the mixing of resins or polymers ("multilayers"). It is therefore important to find solutions to improve sorting. One solution under study would be to integrate bio-based selective markers directly into the material while it is being manufactured, such as a barcode detectable in trace amounts. This challenge can be met by associating all the academic and industrial forces in the region.
