Sustainable Plastics - January/February 2022 - 15

Q&A
adding them into a printing ink,
by dispersing them into a label
material or by homogenising
them at very low concentrations
into the packaging plastic
itself via compounding or via a
masterbatch. In the latter case,
the tracers could be used for
sorting, quality inspection and
product tracking in many use
cycles and until the " end " of the
polymer. This solution has an
outstanding efficiency potential.
What kind of marker materials
are used?
Polysecure has developed
several tracer materials. At present,
Polysecure is pursuing the
food-contact approval for a crystalline
inorganic material family
with very good heat and chemical
stability. All toxicological tests
have been passed with very positive
results. This material family
will provide enough sorting codes
to sort plastic packaging, plastic
waste from automotive, e-waste
and other waste streams. In general,
the tracers should be seen as
a functional additive.
You mentioned that ZEISS is
'foundation-driven': How is
Jochen Moesslein
that important for the focus on
sustainability and business?
Sustainability and business
success are inextricably linked
at ZEISS. The company is fully
owned by the Carl Zeiss Foundation,
one of the largest and
oldest science-funding foundations
in Germany. This means
that ZEISS can have a much
more long-term business strategy
than many stock-listed
companies. A commitment to
the common good and to finding
solutions for key societal
issues are part and parcel of the
company's ethos.
How did the collaboration
between Polysecure
and ZEISS come about? At
whose initiative?
We met at a conference in
Karlsruhe two years ago, shortly
after the ZEISS Innovation Hub
@ KIT had become operational.
Polysecure afterward reached
out to ZEISS to help with a specific
optical design problem,
and from this, the collaboration
evolved into much more.
The circular economy is an
important, sustainable trend
that touches or will touch many
companies. ZEISS was interested
in further moving into this
area of 'green technologies'. The
sorting technology of Polysecure
requires innovative optical
devices and optical physics processes.
With the experience and
excellence of ZEISS in this area,
the synergies between Polysecure
and ZEISS are obvious.
A first target in the strategic
collaboration between the two
companies is the development
of a new multimodal optical detector
that can combine several
measurements for each waste
object: tracer detection, a NIR
(near infrared) measurement,
colour measurement and image
recognition (artificial intelligence),
as well as the detection
of a watermark, if necessary.
How far along are you with
the development of this new
detector technology, and
when do you plan to commercialise
this?
Polysecure and ZEISS are
already working on the new
detector, and it will be a core
part of the new industrial TBS
sorting line at Polysecure in
Freiburg. The collaboration
partners are striving to have the
line ready for industrial sorting
trials by the end of 2022. The
technology has already been
discussed with stakeholders
and the first potential pilot
customers. In-house recycling
and post-production recycling
projects are being focussed on
as the first phase of commercialisation.
Thus, in certain respects,
commercialisation can
be said to have already started.
What will a sorting line
equipped with the new
technology look like? Will it
continued on page 16
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January/February 2022
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Sustainable Plastics - January/February 2022

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