EXHIBITION REVIEW | K2019
PureCycle sets out PP recycling ambitions
Above: PureCycle says a successful test run of its technology has produced “ultra-pure” recycled polypropylene That is not to say that this is a low
It is an attractive proposition – 100% post-consumer PP resin that can be processed and coloured the same as virgin and carries no price premium. That is the goal of PureCycle Technolo- gies, a recycling start-up currently constructing a 50,000 tpa production scale plant in Ohio in the US using technology originally developed by Procter & Gamble. Speaking at a K2019 joint event with
its partner Milliken, PureCycle’s CEO Mike Otworth said the company’s technology addresses all of the issues that brand owners and FMCG produc- ers face when attempting to use recycled materials. “They have to use a middle layer for recycled but with our technology they don’t need to. And they can use 100% without giving up on vibrant colours,” he says. The concept sounds even more
attractive when Otworth claims that the technology can produce high quality product while also addressing the other big issue for potential users – cost. “We only started doing this if we could offer price parity with virgin,” he said.
cost project. The first plant, which is being engineered by Koch Industries, will cost some $300m. The company claims that 50% of the offtake is already committed. Follow-on operations are forecast to come in at around $200m each. Outputs of those follow on units are also expected to be higher. “We did not want to get too ambitious with that first plant – subsequent plants will have a capacity about 25% larger,” Otworth predicts. Even so, reaching the company’s hopes for a global network of some 25 recycling plants is going to require funding of around $5bn. And Otworth acknowledges that will barely scratch the surface of the potential recycling market. The PureCycle technology com- bines solvent and mechanical filtra- tion to remove virtually all contami- nants from the recycled feedstock, which can be either post-consumer of post-industrial waste. That includes external contaminants as well as
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internal components such as fillers, pigments and additives. “We have shown in lab testing that we can produce a resin with even less contamination than virgin so we don’t see any issues with food contact approval,” he said. The processing technology was originally developed to recycle PP. As a consequence, Otworth said that is its area of maximum confidence. It is also expected to work effectively with PE and potentially with mixed PE/PP bales. However, plants will initially be located where feedstocks with a minimum 95% PP content can be guaranteed. For that reason, he said the first European units are likely to be placed in countries with good sorting infrastructure such as Germany or Belgium. Otworth said the technology is also
highly efficient, both in terms of energy use and waste generation. “Energy usage is approximately one eighth of plastic polymerisation,” he said. �
https://purecycletech.com �
http://chemical.milliken.com
PHOTO: PURECYCLE
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