INNOVATION | CHEMICAL RECYCLING
plastic waste varies. Gahn says that “despite technical difficulties in the first months of 2022, Quantafuel’s technology remains one essential building block for BASF’s ChemCycling project. BASF and Quantafuel continue to jointly develop a pilot plant (design capacity: 10 tonnes/day) in Kristiansund, Norway, in which a further developed technology is tested.” Test runs started in 2021. “We can feed pyrolysis oil into our Verbund
Above: In BASF’s ChemCycling project, pyrolysis oil from plastic waste can be fed into the BASF Verbund. BASF partners include Quantafuel, which is specialised in the pyrolysis of mixed plastic waste and the integrated purification of the resulting oil. Photo shows Michael Bachtler from BASF (right) and Rasmus Kærsgaard, Plant Director at Quantafuel in Quantafuel’s pyrolysis and purification plant in Skive, Denmark
produce 30,000 tpa of oil. This capacity will be increased by 50% in 2023. Boudewijn van Vliet, Executive Director at Pryme, said in mid-July that the Rotterdam plant was in the process of being brought onstream. Pryme has also bought a site in Amsterdam
where it plans to install capacity of 35,000 tpa. It is looking at various potential locations in Europe for further plants. The capacity of these plants will be based on multiples of 160,000 tpa of intake. Pryme is looking to establish partnerships with what van Vliet calls “significant” waste management partners to provide material. “We are planning partnerships all along the value chain,” he says. BASF’s efforts in chemical recycling are grouped in its ChemCycling pyrolysis project, which has been running for four years in collaboration with various partners. BASF invested €20m in 2019 in Quantafuel, a Norwegian company specialised in the pyrolysis of mixed post-consumer plastic waste and the purification of the resulting oil. In Septem- ber 2020, Quantafuel started up its first pyrolysis plant with a nameplate capacity of approximately 16,000 tpa in Skive, Denmark. It is not yet fully operational, however. “Together, we are working on further developing
and improving the process to produce pyrolysis oil from mixed plastic waste,” says Christoph Gahn, Head of Chemical Recycling at BASF. Developing suitable catalysts for the new process technology is an important aspect of this. These catalysts aim to ensure that high-purity pyrolysis oil is always produced, even when the composition of the
26 PLASTICS RECYCLING WORLD | July/August 2022
structure as an alternative to fossil raw materials and use it to make new products,” says Gahn. “We use a certified mass balance approach to allocate the percentage of recycled materials to the end product.” Various packaging products have already been commercialised by customers using “Ccy- cled” products. The third of four production lines at Quantafuel’s Skive plant in Denmark was completed on 30 June and is now in commercial production. “The onboarding of the fourth production line is targeted for early fourth quarter,” says Quantafuel’s CEO Lars Rosenløv.
“Our focus for the Skive plant has been on
increasing production capacity and stable produc- tion. We are exposed to prevailing general market conditions with pressure on key cost drivers like natural gas, electricity, feedstock, as well as disposal costs. We are also exposed to a contrac- tual fixed oil off-take price at the moment but are discussing this with our off-take partner.” The focus on high regularity and stable through-
put at Skive continues, as well as the ability to process a variety of plastic qualities. Quantafuel processes plastic from mixed household waste, including waste contaminated with biological material. “The Skive plant continues to produce oil within product specifications, confirming Quanta- fuel’s chemical recycling process,” the company says. In late June, Quantafuel submitted a planning
application for a new plastics upcycling plant in Sunderland, UK. Quantafuel hopes to have the plant operational in 2024. The facility will be designed to process around 100,000 tonnes of low value plastic waste, such as soft food packaging and a variety of domestic and industrial plastics. SABIC and Plastic Energy are over one year into the construction of the first commercial unit to significantly upscale production of SABIC’s certified circular polymers derived from used plastics. The project in Geleen, Netherlands is expected to become operational in the second half of this year. SABIC is also involved in projects for chemical
recycling of so-called ocean bound plastic (OBP). It is, for example, cooperating with Portuguese film
www.plasticsrecyclingworld.com
IMAGE: BASF
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