AIMPLAS, the Plastics Technology Center in Spain, coordinates the project LIFE ECOMETHYLAL, which, by means of catalytic hydro-gasification with plasma technology to obtain methylal from plastics wates.
Methylal can be used as a solvent or as a raw material to produce new plastics, thereby offering the potential to divert more than 100,000 tons of plastics waste each year away from landfills.
In the project, other companies from Valencia, Spain, take part: BPP, ACTECO and AIRESA, as well as the company MI-PLAST from Croatia.
Particularly, BPP will be responsible of implementing at pilot plant level the chemical recycling by means of catalytic hydrogasification with plasma, what will allow giving value to wastes from the packaging, the automotive and the electric-electronic sectors mainly.
“During the project, a small and modular pilot plant is going to be built, which will treat these wastes to obtain methylal. This process is a chemical recycling that is above energy valorization in terms of waste hierarchy,” explained Eva Verdejo, Head of the Sustainability and Industrial Recovery department at AIMPLAS.
The wastes that could be recovered thanks to this technology are mainly mixtures of different plastics that are impossible to be recovered with the existing technologies.
In 2014, a total of 7.8 million tons of these wastes were thrown out in landfills.
The forecasts made by the partners of the project involve the assembly at European level of at least 15 industrial plants having this process integrated in the European Union in a period of five years once the project has been finished.
This will allow the treatment of a total of 144,000 tons of plastics each year and obtain 91,200 tons of methylal from them. These plants will make also possible to save 74,400 tons of CO2 emissions each year and an energy saving of 3,400 million MJ each year, according to AIMPLAS.
The project LIFE ECOMETHYLAL is framed within the EU Programme LIFE, with grant agreement no LIFE15 ENV/ES/000208.
Source : China Plastic & Rubber Journal
