Stand C16, Hall 14
IKV – Institute for Plastics Processing in Industry and the Skilled Crafts at RWTH Aachen University
- Sustainable production, recyclate processing and AI methods in the plastics industry
- Foam2Cycle: Completely recyclable soft-touch application with a high proportion of recycled material
- Detect before Defect: Roller inspection system to improve quality and productivity in flat film extrusion
- KI4KI: Initiative to promote the systematic use of AI methods throughout the plastics value chain
The Institute of Plastics Processing (IKV) in Industry and the Skilled Crafts at RWTH Aachen University will be presenting three forward-looking topics at K 2025 in Düsseldorf from 8 to 15 October 2025: The focus will be on the development of a sustainable, fully recyclable 2K soft-touch application, a roller inspection system for improving the quality of recycled material processing in flat film extrusion and a new initiative that supports companies in recognizing, systematically evaluating and making targeted use of the potential of digitalization and artificial intelligence.
Foam2Cycle:
Economical production of recyclable soft-touch lightweight components
For multi-component soft-touch components, design for recycling and the reduction of the CO2 footprint over the product life cycle are a particular challenge. At K 2025, IKV will be presenting a mechanically recyclable lightweight alternative for soft-touch applications that can compete with conventional soft-touch solutions both visually and haptically. At stand C16 in hall 14, IKV will be producing soft-touch palm rests for computer keyboards during the trade fair, demonstrating the performance, suitability for series production and cost-effectiveness of the new production concept.
The palm rest consists of a polypropylene carrier onto which a thermoplastic elastomer is injection-moulded as a soft component. This has the advantage that the soft component is also a thermoplastic and can therefore be recycled together with the thermoplastic carrier. A PP recyclate can be compounded from shredded palm rests and used for the production of new PP carriers. IKV will be demonstrating the implementation at the stand using multiple recycled molded parts with recyclate contents of up to 30%.
Production takes place using a 2-component thermoplastic foam injection molding process (TSG) with chemical blowing agent. A breathing mold, in which the cavity volume changes over the cycle, enables high foaming rates with high-quality surfaces. An insulating mold coating and the embossing of the component in the mold further improve the surface quality. Foaming can reduce the density of the carrier by around 8 % and that of the TPE by up to 80 %.
The low density and recyclability of the composite results in a significantly improved CO2 footprint over the entire service life of the component. By using established technologies and materials, the cost-effective technology can be directly transferred to industrial use. A 100% inline test of the haptic and mechanical properties in the production cell on the stand shows that the process is ready for series production.
Thanks to the digitalization solutions developed by the IKV spin-off OSPHIM, the process is intelligently set up, optimized and monitored in real time. AI methods are used that originate from research at IKV.
Detect before Defect:
Inspection system for tracking roller coating formation during flat film extrusion
To improve quality and productivity in flat film extrusion, IKV has developed an optical inspection system that can be used to monitor and evaluate the formation of deposits on the calender rollers during the running process. The early detection of film build-up is crucial because deposits on the roll cause a reduction in film quality, which can lead to production stoppages. Especially when processing recyclates, the formation of deposits cannot be predicted due to batch fluctuations. Without monitoring, critical values are only detected when rejects are already being produced and production has to be interrupted to clean the roller.
The inspection system developed at IKV can be easily and cost-effectively integrated into existing systems. It can also be coupled with an automatic roller cleaning system, which is triggered when a critical amount of deposits is detected. The inspection system is based on the optical detection of gloss changes on the roller surface caused by the deposits. A camera system integrated into the system generates an image of the roller surface for each roller revolution. An image processing algorithm then quantifies the deposit formation based on the gray values of the image so that the deposit formation can be tracked over the extrusion length.
The inspection system provides small and medium-sized companies in particular, which often rely on simple and robust production processes, with a practical way of detecting critical roller coatings in good time and reacting to them before rejects are produced and plant downtimes occur. With the system, IKV now has a test bench at its disposal to systematically research the interactions between plastics and roller surfaces with minimal use of materials and to derive recommendations for action for industrial production.
The inspection system is fully integrated into the flat film extrusion line and makes it possible to track and record the coating formation during the running process. (Source IKV)
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