10105573Development of inline monitoring for polymer cleaning processesClosedCollaborative R&DInnovate UKProcess monitoring of the DeeCom polymer degradation and filter cleaning system can be challenging. This is due to the high pressure and temperature steam environment in which this cleaning process occurs. As a result, polymer contaminated filters are often overprocessed, to ensure that all possible polymer has been removed. This directly increases the carbon footprint and costs of this process, while potentially damaging and sensitising the steel of the filters, if DeeCom is run at too high a temperature or pressure, for too long. This therefore hampers the utility and potential of DeeCom. This is despite demonstrated potential that DeeCom can be applied to the recycling of a range of other polymers, such as textiles, composites or wind turbine blades. In this project, B&M Longworth is collaborating with the Henry Royce Institute to design and build a monitoring system for DeeCom. In this novel approach, they will build a retrofit unit to integrate with existing technologies, which will utilise a range of different analytical techniques, to compensate for the limitations of each individual approach. This bespoke unit will be the first time that such a monitoring system is developed for any DeeCom unit. This will build upon existing company data of process optimisation and the analytical chemistry and algorithmic interpretation expertise within the Royce Institute, to advance our mechanistic understanding of the novel "pressolysis" technology. By developing this inline monitoring system, these collaborators unlock the potential to dramatically reduce the process times of DeeCom, while maintaining high quality filter cleaning. This therefore reduces the costs of operation and carbon footprint directly, while expanding the scope of DeeCom as a plastics and composites recycling technology. By enabling the monitoring of the DeeCom process, we ensure we can support our customers, while simultaneously expanding our services to support a wider range of industries. If successful, this innovation will allow retrofitting to the seventeen DeeCom units extant, while unlocking the potential for DeeCom to be a global solution for problematic waste streams.