DSM/Allied Signal to Recycle

DSM Chemicals North America and Allied Signal late in 1997 agreed to jointly build a 90,000 million- ton-per-year carpet-recycling plant at DSM's site in Augusta, GA. The nylon-6 depolymerization unit is slated for start up in mid-1999, producing 45,000 million-ton-per-year of merchant- grade caprolactam. The companies say they successfully tested the technical and economic feasibility of the process at a pilot plant during the past year.

The plant professedly will be the first commercial-scale "shop" to recycle nylon-6 from post-consumer carpet waste. Key to the technology, according to the companies, is a near-infrared detector that allows rapid identification of the type of material in the carpet waste.

DSM's president said that nylon-6 is particularly suited to recycling because of the relative ease with which it depolymerizes. Allied said it expects to sell nylon fiber with varying percentages of post- consumer nylon-6 content.

Also DSM is reported to be studying the feasibility of starting a carpet recycling activity in Europe.