For compounds containing recycled plastics to be used in high-value applications, they need to be as consistent in quality as compounds based entirely on virgin polymers. That is a major challenge for companies reprocessing post-consumer material with all its variability in quality. Usually PCR input material requires additives to be applied during compounding to restore mechanical properties, but with unpredictable quality fluctuations and flow behaviour, the compounder must do time-consuming testing offline and/or rely on estimates for the correct amount of additives to dose. Two organisations are now offering to take the time and guesswork out of dealing with feedstock material variability using rheometers in line with the compounding system and thereby ensure consistently high quality products with recycled content.

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