MONITOR3D

Increasing the use of recycled materials in place of raw materials offers multiple economic, social, and climate benefits. It is vital in reducing environmental pollution and is key to meeting Net Zero targets. By recycling our materials, we conserve natural resources, reduce energy consumption and carbon emissions, and ultimately create a healthier planet for ourselves, and for future generations.

However, the adoption of recycled materials is being held back by a number of limitations. Recycled materials typically demonstrate greater variation in quality when compared with raw equivalents. In addition, recycled content often has a narrower processing window.

The combination of these means that processes running recycled materials are less stable, and require greater control to yield a consistent product. This requirement can mean manufacturers are either hesitant or unable to switch to recycled equivalents.

This project aims to demonstrate the feasibility of a new sensing technology that will give manufacturers information about their processes that until now has been unattainable. This greater understanding will enable operators to better control their processes, make more efficient use of process materials, reduce waste and increase their adoption of recycled materials.

In doing so this technology will also assist closed-loop control for lights-out machine operation, ensuring maximum production with minimum setup, downtime and environmental impact.

Peak to Peak Measurement Solutions Ltd are specialists in condition monitoring sensor technology. Their non-invasive condition monitoring technology is able to offer online, non-invasive and real-time measurements. In this project, they will partner with experts from Brunel University London to demonstrate and validate their technology with state-of-the-art laboratory measurements.

The ultimate aim for this project is to de-risk and incentivise the increased use of recycled materials, and as a result increase its comparative value, thereby decreasing the existing reliance on raw materials. The project team will work with a range of stakeholders along the manufacturing value chain to demonstrate the technology viability, and to evaluate and quantify its benefit to process operators.