Project Description
Project Overview: In an effort to reduce plastic waste, Amcor Flexibles North America has pledged by 2025 to develop all of their sustainable packaging to be recyclable, made with recycled material, or reusable. This project team will join their mission focusing on rigid plastic bottles. The team will test and evaluate the material properties of plastic bottles made with petrochemical feed-stock (known as virgin) polyethylene terephthalate (PET) against recycled (rPET) material bottles. This project will evaluate: 1) absorbance (the effects of the material’s color) using a hand-held photo-spectrometer and 2) Intrinsic viscosity will be tested (through 3rd party) and analyzed using a capillary viscometer. In addition, the Karlfischer titration analytical method for quantifying water content (moisture %) will be used at Amcor facilities. Finally, the presence of contaminates (specifically acetaldehyde, limonene, and benzene) will be determined using Gas Chromatography (GC) at UW-Madison. The project team’s goal is find the optimal recycled rPET that allows Amcor to maintain the required properties while allowing a sustainable and cost efficient alternative to the virgin PET structure.
Client: Megan Goodrich and Kevin Nelson, Amcor Flexibles North America, Neenah< Wisconsin
Student Team: Alex Budke, Kwon Lee, Selma Fairach, and Justin Tan
