CHEMICAL RECYCLING | INNOVATION


branded PS that combines 55% recycled styrene monomer feedstock with virgin, fossil-based content.


Controlling costs Beyond PS, many developments are ongoing to create chemical recycling operations that can survive and prosper on a large scale. For example, Nexus Circular in Atlanta, Georgia, US, has developed chemical recycling technology that uses a proprietary process and pyrolysis. It says it has optimised the technology to create a highly efficient, economic, commercial and scalable system for delivering cost-effective, high quality distillate, or “circular liquid.” Nexus is currently operating with an input of


around 40 tonnes/day (50 US tons), providing a yield of around 85%. Input is predominantly film, which is supplied mostly in the form of bales. The technology can handle polyolefins and PS films. President and co-founder Eric Hartz says the prices Nexus pays for its feedstock are very advanta- geous, partly because the company has little competition to bid against. The film is otherwise destined for landfill. Nexus is taking post-industrial, post-commercial,


post-retail, post-agricultural, and post-consumer film. Hartz reckons other recycling operations are paying as much as three to five times as much for feedstock, because it has to be pelletised or shredded, or because intermediates with their own costs are involved. He also emphasises the impor- tance of other infrastructure elements such as site location to keep transport costs as low as possible. Quality of output is also said to fall within very tight specification parameters. “Char is not en- trenched with our liquids, so we have no post-treat- ment such as distillation or hydro-treating that adds a lot of complexity or cost.” The process is a closed-loop system, with no air pollution issues, and which creates no wastewater, Hartz says. He says that within five years, Nexus plans to


have at least 12 large plants chemically recycling film waste coming from various sources, both post-industrial and post-consumer. Current input is over 90% post-consumer. The original Nexus plant has been running since


2018, and while not divulging how much waste it has processed in that time, Hartz said in early July that the one hundredth truck load of output from the plant had just gone out. In July, Nexus Circular and Dow announced that they have signed a detailed letter of intent (LOI) for Dow to secure the production output of a newly constructed advanced recycling facility in Dallas,


www.plasticsrecyclingworld.com


Texas. The new facility will process and convert over 26,000 tpa annually of previously non-recy- cled plastic into feedstock that will be delivered back to Dow as a raw material to create new plastics for food-contact, health, hygiene, and fitness applications. Nexus already has a supply agreement with


Shell, announced in late 2020, for 60,000 tonnes over four years, of pyrolysis liquid made from plastic waste, which Shell will convert into various chemical products. Shell called the agreement “a next step towards Shell’s ambition to use one million tonnes of plastic waste a year in its global chemical plants by 2025”. Early last year, Shell and Pryme signed pyrolysis oil supply agreements to use in Shell’s chemical plants in Europe. Also last year, Shell and Environ- mental Solutions Asia signed a supply agreement for pyrolysis oil to use at its Energy and Chemicals Park Singapore. “We are driving third-party volumes across the globe to help grow the market of pyrolysis oil through long term relationships with pyrolysis oil producers,” says a Shell representative. “We are also collaborating with the waste management industry to develop the critical infrastructure needed to collect and sort the plastic waste that would otherwise go to landfill or incineration. Each of these elements is crucial to Shell achieving its ambition, and we are making steady progress.” The first Pryme plant in Rotterdam is under construction and scheduled to start commissioning in 2022. This will be followed by the rollout of its technology across Europe and globally in collabo- ration with strategic partners. Pryme’s Rotterdam plant has an initial intake capacity of 40,000 tpa of plastic waste and will


Above: The original Nexus plant has produced over one hundred truck loads of distillate from film waste


July/August 2022 | PLASTICS RECYCLING WORLD 25


IMAGE: NEXUS


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