Medical implants replace dysfunctional or missing body parts to maintain physiological functions. The associated market is growing by 4%/year. However, the key factor restraining the market is high implant costs. In this view, PEEK and CRF-PEEK due to biocompatibility, mechanical properties similar to that of bone and radiolucency, are increasingly used instead of metals. But, these biomaterials are bionert inducing a very limited osseointegration, which is THE expectation for bone implants.

Several issues have been identified concerning the recycling of plastics during the analysis of the state of the art. Firstly, the presence of contaminants and the disassembly of complex structures appear as major issue and limit the development of mechanical recycling of plastics. On the other hand, tertiary recycling or chemical recycling is in its infancy and fundamental knowledge in this field is still needed to allow its spreading at different scales.