November 13, 2023 Nextek Wins IOM3 Circular Economy Award with COtooCLEAN

COtooCLEAN’s cutting-edge solution to boost the circularity of food-grade films using co-solvents, wins IOM3’s Circular Economy Award.

Nextek Ltd won the IOM3’s Circular Economy Award with COtooCLEAN, a unique supercritical carbon dioxide (ScCO₂) cleaning process that efficiently and effectively cleans and decontaminates post-consumer polyolefin films to a food-grade status.

COtooCLEAN was picked from a wide range of excellent innovations recognised as transformational in the sectors of the Circular Economy and Enabling Net Zero Sustainable Materials Technology.

COtooCLEAN’s cutting-edge solution to boost the circularity of food-grade films uses ScCO₂ ,a non-toxic, non-flammable and non-corrosive solvent that can selectively remove contaminants through use of co-solvents.

In a single step, the process targets the simultaneous removal of oils, inks, adhesives, labels and chemical contamination from post-consumer polyolefin films, while recycling the non-toxic solvent and separating the residues.

COtooCLEAN is poised to address the current roadblocks to recycling plastic films, which, so far, has been held back by the absence of a technology to decontaminate post-consumer polyolefin films (LDPE, LLDPE, HDPE, PP) back into food-grade material.

COtooCLEAN participants led by Nextek Limited

Viridor Ltd is one of the UK’s leading recycling, resource and waste management companies. Viridor will be the collector and recycler of films and potential plant builder for the scale up.

Unilever is one of the world’s leading suppliers of Beauty & Personal Care, Home Care, and Foods & Refreshment products. They will support the project with testing and analysis to validate the resulting materials for consumer goods packaging applications.

Allied Bakeries are one of the UK’s biggest bread makers, selling 1.6 billion loaves in the UK each year and 90% of these are packed in polyethylene. They will evaluate the resulting recycled material with the involvement of their packaging manufacturer and will supply films for de-inking and test recycled films for food-grade status.

Amcor is a global leader in developing and producing responsible packaging for food, beverage, pharmaceutical, medical, home- and personal-care, and other products. Amcor works with leading companies around the world to protect their products and the people who rely on them, differentiate brands, and improve supply chains through a range of flexible and rigid packaging, specialty cartons, closures, and services. The company is focused on making packaging that is increasingly light-weighted, recyclable and reusable, and made using an increasing amount of recycled content.

University of Nottingham, School of Chemistry (Professor Steve Howdle) will conduct the majority of the optimisation research in the early work packages which will lead to scale up. The UoN team is skilled in sustainability, polymer chemistry, the use of supercritical fluids, analytical chemistry and have experience in the commercialisation of academic research.

The Biocomposites Centre (BC) at Bangor University has invested in the most versatile laboratory and pilot-scale CO₂ equipment in the UK. They will focus on LCA and process optimisation as they have extensive analytical facilities to assist with characterisation of materials.

Suprex, a joint venture between Phytovation Ltd and Bangor University, specialises in the development of applications of supercritical CO₂ and will take a lead in equipment design and safe operation and construction and assist in large scale trials of the post consumer films.

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