The topic of sustainability wasn’t so much an undercurrent at the recent K 2019 trade fair as a tsunami. It seemed as if a majority of the show’s 3,300 exhibitors were touting new products or services said to advance the circular economy, reduce waste or energy use, or generally just make those companies appear greener.
It was the most concerted effort the plastics industry has ever seen to embrace and advance the issue of sustainability. Remember, after all, that this is the K Show –– eight days long, with an estimated 225,000 attendees from 165 countries exploring some 175,000 square meters of net exhibition space. It doesn’t get much bigger.
Let’s look at some novel technological developments showcased there aimed at enhancing recycling efforts, including from PureCycle Technologies, Ineos Styrolution, LyondellBasell and Saudi Basic Industries Corp. (Sabic).
Making polypropylene new again
Chicago-based PureCycle Technologies did not exhibit but held a joint news conference Oct. 18 with additives supplier Milliken & Co. to provide an update on its process to use heat, pressure and solvents to turn waste polypropylene into ultrapure, virgin-like, recycled PP resin. PureCycle has licensed the patented process from Procter & Gamble Co. (P&G), and plans to open its first commercial-scale plant in the southern Ohio city of Ironton in 2021. PureCycle has already invested $27 million to construct the facility.
PureCycle CEO Mike Otworth said the plant will have the capacity to recycle 119 million pounds of polypropylene, and produce more than 105 million pounds a year. Noting that the planned plant’s output is “presold for 20 years,” Otworth said his firm is evaluating potential sites in Europe now, and that future plants will have about 25% greater capacity than the one in Ohio.
“Scaling is the task at hand now,” Otworth acknowledged, noting that PureCycle aims eventually to establish at least 25 plants around the world. Even so, he said, that capacity will only scratch the surface of demand. PureCycle’s process enables the separation of color, odor and other contaminants from plastic waste feedstock. “It is physical separation and purification,” Otworth explained, “not chemical or mechanical recycling.”
The company can source PP from carpet waste and stadium trash, for example, and after processing with Milliken’s clarifying additives, produce a clear, transparent resin that can be used to make new food-contact bottles or containers –– not just the middle layer of a three-layer product.
Nestlé S.A., the world’s largest food and beverage company, is also a partner in the venture, and has committed to make 100%of its packaging recyclable or reusable by 2025. “These partners are helping us accelerate as we bring this solution to the market,” said Otworth.
Otworth noted that P&G has done early proof-of-concept work with polyethylene, as well, and there are signs that the same process can be made to work with PE resins.
Seeking a circular solution for polystyrene
Styrenics giant Ineos Styrolution Group GmbH, meanwhile, is taking a different approach –– focusing on chemical recycling to produce polystyrene from recycled material.
Polystyrene is one of very few polymers that can be converted back into its specific monomer. Technical properties such as its low ceiling temperature enable recycling under conditions that can be achieved in a twin-screw extruder. Test results have shown that polystyrene is very recyclable.
This past April, the Frankfurt, Germany-based company announced its first successful test run producing virgin polystyrene from previously depolymerized material. Ineos termed the production of a lab-scale quantity of general-purpose PS from 100% recycled styrene monomer “a game changer in polystyrene production.” (See more at www.depolymerisation.com).
In the months since, Ineos produced its first small batches of chemically recycled resin at its facility in Antwerp, Belgium, and provided sheets containing 50% of recycled general-purpose PS to German dairy products producer Unternehmensgruppe Theo Müller, which has now produced yoghurt cups from this recycled material. The two firms agreed on a phased approach with a lab-scale phase to start this year, a pilot-scale phase starting in 2020 and a commercial-scale phase in 2022.
A month before the K Show, Ineos disclosed the first results of an initiative dubbed the ResolVe project, funded by BMBF, the German Federal Ministry for Education, and jointly executed by Ineos, another firm and two universities. “The ResolVe project team now has proof of concept of closed-loop recycling,” Ineos stated.
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The project aimed to learn more about the yield of styrenics in the chemical recycling process and the impact of non-styrenic waste contaminations.
“It turns out that the chemical recycling process for polystyrene is sensitive to PET contamination. On the other hand,” Ineos says, “it is hardly impacted by contamination with polyolefins of up to 10%.”
These findings allow Ineos Styrolution move on to a pilot phase, while also preparing the grounds for scaling the process for industrial use.
The week following the K Show, Ineos announced an agreement with Sirap Group, an Italy-based, multinational producer of fresh food packaging. The parties will work to develop packaging solutions based on chemically recycled PS. They’ve agreed on a very ambitious timetable, with the first samples of recycled polystyrene from lab-scale facilities being analyzed still in 2019.
LyondellBasell technology a catalyst for recycling
Resin maker LyondellBasell, which is based in Houston and Rotterdam, The Netherlands, discussed the latest developments with its proprietary molecular recycling technology, called MoReTec (see short video: https://www.lyondellbasell.com/en/news-events/products–technology-news/lyondellbasell-announces-construction-of-new-small-scale-molecular-recycling-facility/).
The company is collaborating on a project with the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, and says the technology has shown that use of a catalyst in the pyrolysis process, or the structural breakdown of plastic waste into molecules, is faster and more energy efficient than traditional chemical recycling.
LyondellBasell says the MoReTec technology aims to convert typically difficult-to-recycle plastic waste such as multilayer films, returning them to their molecular state to be used as feedstock to produce new plastic for all applications, including healthcare and food-contact items.
The firm said it is building a small-scale recycling pilot facility at its site in Ferrara, Italy, thereby moving another step closer to converting post-consumer plastic waste into new plastics on a commercial scale.
Sabic goes certifiably circular
Riyadh-based Sabic, meanwhile, said it is producing certified circular polyethylene and polypropylene resins created from chemically recycled mixed plastic waste.
At the fair, the Saudi giant highlighted how Unilever is using these materials in commercial products, including its circular impact PP for frozen foods in Unilever’s newly introduced Magnum ice cream tub.
Tupperware Brands also is using Sabic’s certified circular PP polymer to produce its new, reusable Eco Straw and drinking tumbler.
As you can tell from this sampling from the show, many companies are forging ahead with innovative research and development projects to help the plastics industry close the loop and find new ways to repurpose plastics waste. There is certain to be more to come. Stay tuned.
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