Sustainable Circular Economy through Artificial Intelligence
The KIOptiPack innovation lab is all about providing, validating and transferring practical AI-supported tools for successful product design and the high-quality production of plastic packaging with a high proportion of recycled materials.
Packaging accounts for by far the largest proportion of plastic waste worldwide. Due to technical and economic challenges that are often too great, only a small proportion of packaging plastics are recycled into packaging and thus kept in the cycle. The “AI application hub for plastic packaging – sustainable circular economy through artificial intelligence” project funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research aims to change this. By applying artificial intelligence (AI) methods, the aim is to achieve a resource-efficient circular economy. Taking into account economic, ecological and social aspects, the project deals with the entire life cycle of plastic packaging and covers the entire value chain.
Innovation labs:
The AI application hub is divided into two complementary innovation labs: “KIOptiPack – Holistic AI-based optimisation of plastic packaging with recycled content” (topic cluster: design and production) and “K3I-Cycling – AI-supported optimisation of the recycling of plastic packaging” (topic cluster: closing the loop). A total of 51 partners from business, science and society are involved. IKV coordinates the consortium of the KIOptiPack innovation laboratory with around 40 project partners as consortium leader and contributes its extensive expertise in the field of plastics processing to various key areas of the project.
Research objectives:
The joint work aims to provide practice-ready AI-supported tools for successful product design and the high-quality production of plastic packaging with a high proportion of recycled materials in an AI application and data room. With its tools, the project covers the entire value chain from secondary raw materials, material and packaging development, process design and packaging production through to the consumer. IKV focuses on AI-supported process optimization along the value chain in the processes of material characterization, compounding, extrusion and injection moulding. Starting with the efficient characterisation of incoming material flows with a high proportion of recycled material, a digitally networked value chain is considered, in which the subsequent processes of compounding, extrusion and injection moulding are optimized and adapted to the specific requirements of the material and product with a sufficiently extensive database.
© IKVIn compounding, for example, the dynamic and AI-supported creation of recipes is being investigated. The aim here is to ensure consistent compound quality despite fluctuating input qualities of the recyclates – without human intervention. In previous tests, the melt flow rate (MFR) could be predicted with a model quality R² = 0.998 using machine data measured on the twin-screw extruder.
Project data and funding
Project duration: 01.08.2022 31.07.2025
Project funding:
