Sustainability, digitalization focus of talks at Wittmann event

Vienna — Mikula Thiem, technology and innovation manager at the Frankfurt, Germany-based VDMA German machinery industry association, talked about digitalization from an industry association's point of view at the recent Wittmann Competence Days events in Vienna.

He referred to intelligent networking of machines and processes for Industry 4.0 principals, assisted by information and communication technology.

Increasing production efficiency through automation, automatic process optimization and connected supply chains ultimately also lead to conservation of resources through CO2 emission reduction, Thiem suggested. And to new products and business models.

Data generated during the life of a machine can lead to an ASA (or asset administration shell, as defined by the IDTA industrial digital twin association).

Thiem talked about Manufacturing-X as a digital data ecosystem "where providers and interested parties meet and agree bilaterally or multilaterally on "purpose- and time-bound transfer of data according to jointly defined rules and standards."

He said that no central platform is involved in Manufacturing-X and that data sovereignty remains with the company providing the data. This can include monitoring data on CO2, ESG (environment, social and governance), the circular economy, process optimization and predictive maintenance.

“Al and Digitalization: The game-changers for the plastics industry” was the title of a presentation by Alexander Kronimus, interim managing director of Frankfurt-based plastics materials producers' association PlasticsEurope Deutschland.

Kronimus focused on how AI and digitalization help achieve a climate-neutral circular economy, against a background of global plastics consumption being expected to double or triple by 2060 as economies and populations continue to grow.

He spoke of "complementary recycling," defined as a need to maximize plastics recycling while minimizing the ecological footprint. And it is here that AI can be used to optimize recyclate compounding by fusing historical polymer data with recyclate analysis, together with experts. This could more easily result in compounding with defined recycled content, in order to achieve desired properties such as a particular level of impact resistance, and with less trials involved, Kronimus said.

AI should also assist in packaging design by addressing core themes such as marketing, safety, sustainability and cost-effectiveness, enabling faster development and fewer trials. It would be involved in lightweighting, reusability, recyclability, recyclate content and use of bio-based materials. Demand and supply for different types of recyclate could be managed via digital trading platforms, Kronimus advised. He posed an interesting question in terms of lifestyle options, as to whether a consumer really wants a washing machine or really just washing performance.

Digitalization improves production and extends the time to end-of-life, through development of performance materials with less use of resources, by improved circular design and by closing loops in collection, sorting and recycling, Kronimus said.

Klemens Reitinger of the Vienna-based TGM Kunststofftechnik federal institute spoke with 300 students on how plastics can be a partial solution to a sustainable future in everyday life. He said the proportion of plastics in airplanes has risen from 4 percent to around 50 percent since the 1970s.

Thermoplastic polyurethane in sports items can be 100 percent recycled, and in shoes it only absorbs 10 grams after one hour when immersed in water, while leather absorbs 130 grams

The future of plastic will depend on finding solutions to the ecological problems it causes, with 10 million to 15 million tons of plastic ending up in the sea every year and 10 river systems transport 90 percent of this amount. Reitinger suggests a realist life cycle assessment needs to be made in food packaging.

Plastics play an important role in medicine with sterile packaging and medical products. In eyeglasses, mineral ophthalmic lenses have a 5 percent market share, offer higher scratch resistance and require less lens thickness for high diopters. Plastic lenses have a 95 percent market share and are lightweight, break-resistant and available in all colors.

Reitinger described plastics as a success story, with worldwide production having increased from 50 million metric tons in 1972 to 400 million tonnes in 2022, of which 58.7 million tonnes is in Europe, where 1.5 million people were directly employed in the industry in 2022. But this growth should be seen against a background of the world population having risen, admittedly less strongly, from 3.5 billion to 8 billion in the same period.

Food production as a whole accounts for around 37 percent of a European's climate footprint, including transportation, processing, refrigeration, deforestation and methane emission. One hundred million tonnes of food are wasted in Europe alone every year and 16 percent of all food spoils before it reaches the supermarket. Plastic packaging helps to reduce the amount of food waste.

This can be seen with an example of the CO2 footprint of a cucumber being 53 times greater than that of the film in which it is packed. Some 9.4 percent of unpackaged food in retail outlets wastes. But only 4.6 percent wastes if PE film is used to preserve freshness and reduce moisture loss. Reitinger added that plastics perform relatively well ecologically, as 11 percent of paper bags with visible strips is wasted, compared with 0.8 percent for PP film packaging.

In terms of emissions, Reitinger pointed out that lightweight automotive construction results in each kilogram of weight saved by plastics use in cars reducing 20 kilograms of CO2 emission in traffic. And in buildings, plastics can save more than 200 times as much energy as is required for its manufacture, which also means one cubic meter of insulation saves as much CO2 as two trees.

Solutions suggested by Reitinger include sustainable consumption, increasing product useful life and avoiding "ultra-fast" fashion. But innovative engineering and recycling-friendly eco design can play important roles, as can education and fact-based decisions in material choice of materials.

Efficient energy should be used in plastics production, and the petrochemical linear economy should be converted to a sustainable circular economy, said concluded. He suggested to the students that they should consider careers in which they develop innovation in the plastics industry and work as engineers on sustainable plastics solutions.