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Toray Industries Inc. (Toyko, Japan) announces that it has developed a technology that makes it possible to recycle glass fiber-reinforced
polyphenylene sulfide (GFRP-PPS) that performs like virgin resins. The increased recycling ratio also contributes to emission reduction.

PPS resin is an engineering plastic with optimized heat and chemical resistance. More than 90% of PPS resin is glass fiber-reinforced and can be applied to various types of industrial applications. PPS resin also features good insulation resistance, making it well suited for electronic parts such as semiconductors and electric vehicle parts. 

According to Toray, the conventional process for recycling GFRP-PPS shortens glass fibers and break them, decreasing mechanical strength. To combat this, Toray has developed pellets for recycling materials by leveraging a proprietary compounding technology to blend PPS resin with special reinforcing fibers. It enables comparable mechanical strength performance to virgin products. This is still the case, even when the recycled material accounts for 50% or more of the GFRP-PPS material. CO₂ emissions are also reduced by at least 40%.

The company is working on technologies to broaden its variations by designing different resins and additives in pellet form for recycling materials. Collaborating with several molding companies and other business partners, Toray has already embarked on closed recycling initiatives with its technology. One move has been to supply customers with recycled GFRP-PPS pellets blended with those for materials recycling based on process remnants from customer plants. The company is also conducting tests to verify horizontal recycling and to prepare for commercialization with cooperation from customers.

Toray plans to seek more partners to create a recycling program and will foster the use in open recycling for materials recovered from the marketplace. A first step will be to develop sample work, primarily for customers in Japan, and from there launch offerings under Ecouse, Toray’s integrated brand for recycled materials and products.