2025 Spring Meeting and 21st Global Congress on Process Safety

(112a) Plastic Waste As a Circular Carbon Feedstock for Industry

Authors

Lin Chen, AVGI
Guy B. Marin, Ghent University
Elisea Alcolea Coronel, Tecnicas Reunidas
The European Commission launched a programme in 2021 with a budget of € 39 000 000 to support projects to develop technologies to use plastic waste as a circular carbon feed for the chemical industry. The commission defined the outcomes of the projects as follows:
  • Valorise a wide variety of unsorted plastic (and other) waste in large amounts, to avoid landfill;
  • Yield material streams of high industrial interest, replacing the ones currently produced from fossil feedstocks (e.g. olefins, hydrogen, syngas, etc.);
  • Develop concepts enabling 100% utilisation of Renewable Energy Sources (e.g. electrified processes), coping with potential fluctuations in the energy supply;
  • At least 60% GHG emissions reductions in the overall lifecycle compared to existing processes for plastic recycling (or relevant benchmark).

In this paper AVGI bv and Técnicas Reunidas, SA (TR), two companies with complementary skills, which have recently made a formal collaboration agreement, describe two of the three successful projects that were awarded contracts under the commission programme. The two projects are named Plastics2Olefins (TR is a Partner) and eLECTRO (AVGI is a Partner).

Plastics2Olefins and eLECTRO are compared and contrasted to highlight the different approaches to achieving the outcomes required by commission.