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Research & Development

Inventing tomorrow’s recycling solutions

Thumbnail portrait of Fredrik Overgaard, R&D Director at Stena Recycling

“Society is demanding a transformation towards a more sustainable world at a very pace. This will require collaboration, innovation and new ways of working across the complete industry to secure true circularity. This is the main driver for our Research & Development activities.”

Fredrik Overgaard, R&D Director

Close-up of R&D toots examining the interior electronic circuit card in a discarded mobile phone

Research and Development in Industry 4.0 for recycling

Innovative solutions with emerging technologies such as AI, Machine Learning and Vision Systems are tested and developed at Stena Nordic Recycling Center to enable a more efficient and effective production. The research also involves the development of digital threads and digital twins to be part of a circular recycling initiative.

Female R&D expert watching the progress in a lab test of recycled plastic

Research and Development in plastic recycling

Plastic is used in and around almost all products and the volumes constantly increase. Historically, much plastic has been lost from recycling due to lacking ability to collect and process the materials. However, using recycled plastic for manufacturing of new products brings great savings in CO2 emissions compared to virgin material. Our research within plastic recycling focuses both on state-of-the-art recycling processes for mechanical recycling, producing clean, high-quality recycled plastic raw materials, and on product design for circularity to secure future recyclability. By developing smarter designs of plastic products and more efficient recycling processes, we can turn more plastic into a circular resource that can be used again and again to manufacture climate-smart and sustainable products.

Two recycling experts dressed in reflective work jackets dismantling EV batteries

Research and Development in battery recycling

The ongoing electrification in society is creating new challenges and research demand. Discarded batteries from electric vehicles and other applications can either be reused as quality secured second-life batteries or recycled into new raw materials. This meets the great demand of securing innovation-critical metals. Stena Recycling is putting a lot of resources into research and development in the area.

Make your ideas take off at Stena Recycling LAB

Stena Recycling Lab is our arena for innovation and collaboration. Here we give entrepreneurs, partners, researchers and students the opportunity to develop future recycling technology and products together with us.

At Stena Nordic Recycling Center you’ll have co-working areas and easy access to materials and machinery. However, the collaborations can take place anywhere in the world together with our experts, in the form of projects.

Would you like to join in? Fill in the contact form and one of our experts will get back to you.

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