VTT to add new methods to the plastics recycling chain
08/27/2019
A portion of collected plastic waste does not qualify for mechanical recycling and ends up incinerated instead. VTT complements the selection of sustainable recycling methods with chemical recycling based on pyrolysis, which will turn nearly all plastics and their mixtures into oil – the raw material of fuels, plastics and other chemicals.
VTT demonstrated that chemical recycling offers an ecologically sound alternative to incineration and possibly to mechanical recycling as well. Legislation in Finland and the EU does not recognise chemical recycling of plastics as being equal to mechanical recycling.
The project focused on pre-treatment and pyrolysis of plastic waste, and also somewhat on post-treatment of the product. Long polymer chains of plastics and their mixtures were pyrolysed, i.e., heated in the absence of oxygen, and thus chopped into shorter chains and in part even to monomers. Pyrolysis oil can be distilled into separate monomers, diesel and other fractions, some of which can be used directly as fuels and some as raw material for plastics and other chemicals. |