Evaluation model

The entropy-based evaluation model makes it possible to describe the material and material flow state of any disordered material flow and to take internal order states into account. This makes it possible to determine which and how many plastics a material flow contains, including material quality or ageing status. It also takes into account how much energy is required for the individual recycling paths when the material flow is split up and what results (e.g. recyclates) can be achieved. All in all, this enables real-time statements to be made about the likely recycling success.

In order to map this complex evaluation and also make statements possible for heterogeneous and contaminated plastics, a digital twin was developed that contains the properties of the processed materials and opens up the possibility of interaction between the real and virtual worlds. Linking this data (input materials and recyclates) with ecological, economic and technical criteria such as the parameters of the processing procedure enables intelligent allocation to a suitable processing route according to the technology hierarchy.

The substitution potential of plastic recyclates was evaluated in the Consequential Life Cycle Assessment using a newly developed methodology. In addition, the work for “Waste4Future” succeeded in the automated evaluation of (recycling) process chains with data from heterogeneous sources such as machine-readable data collection sheets, internal data storage via SQL databases and interfaces to external real processes via digital twins. The project partners used a virtual demonstrator to test and prove the model's performance and wide range of possible applications.