Abstract Plastic demand is continuously growing and, with it, the amount of plastic waste. The packaging industry is by far the largest source of single-use plastic products that, after use, end up in landfills and oceans. Mechanical recycling is the solution most widely implemented in the global industry and its effectiveness and reliability have been demonstrated for processing post-industrial plastic scrap. The recycling of post-consumer plastic waste, however, requires an upgrade in the current technology to achieve complete decontamination and removal of malodorous substances embedded in the polymer. This review explores the state-of-the-art technology currently employed in the mechanical recycling of plastic waste, focusing on the progress made for the removal of volatile organic compounds emitted from recycled materials. Followed by a review of the analytical techniques that have been applied for the identification of volatile organic compounds, including, in particular, the techniques used for the identification of odor-active substances. Finally, this review gathers from literature all the volatile organic compounds and odor-active substances identified in virgin and recycled polymers, aiming to evaluate whether there is a notable difference between them based on the chemical structure of the emitted VOCs. As a result, 437 volatiles were gathered, which show the difference between post-consumer recycled plastics and the other plastic waste sources. A larger number of volatile organic compounds, especially flavor and fragrances-based substances as well as oxygenates, appear in post-consumer plastic waste compared to virgin and post-industrial plastic scrap.

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再生塑料挥发性有机化合物综述

摘要 塑料需求不断增长，塑料垃圾的数量也在不断增长。迄今为止，包装行业是一次性塑料产品的最大来源，这些产品在使用后最终会进入垃圾填埋场和海洋。机械回收是全球工业中最广泛实施的解决方案，其有效性和可靠性已被证明用于处理后工业塑料废料。然而，消费后塑料废物的回收需要对当前技术进行升级，以实现完全净化和去除聚合物中嵌入的恶臭物质。本综述探讨了目前在塑料废物机械回收中采用的最先进技术，重点关注在去除回收材料中排放的挥发性有机化合物方面取得的进展。随后回顾了用于鉴别挥发性有机化合物的分析技术，特别是用于鉴别气味活性物质的技术。最后，本综述从文献中收集了在原始聚合物和回收聚合物中鉴定出的所有挥发性有机化合物和气味活性物质，旨在根据排放的 VOC 的化学结构评估它们之间是否存在显着差异。结果，收集到 437 种挥发物，显示了消费后回收塑料与其他塑料废物来源之间的差异。与原始和后工业塑料废料相比，大量的挥发性有机化合物，尤其是基于香料和香料的物质以及含氧化合物，出现在消费后的塑料废料中。