Chemical recycling hub coming to Belgium

Synpet Technologies aims to set up its first commercial chemical recycling plant in Antwerp.

The Turkish-Belgian company plans to build a EUR 100 million facility. Swiss petrochemical manufacturer Kolmar Group is backing the site. The investment gives Kolmar the exclusive right to the output of the new plant.

Synpet selected Antwerp because of its repution as ‘one of Europe’s largest and most intensive petrochemical clusters’. The company is aiming for start-up in 2025. The facility will create around 70 jobs.

The plant will have an initial capacity to process 180 000 tonnes of mixed plastic scrap per year. Synpet hopes to increase this by 2030 to reach an ambitious global capacity of one million tonnes of plastic scrap.

Synpet Technologies uses proprietary technology that decomposes plastics and other various waste types to form pure hydrocarbons using water as the reagent.

Unlike pyrolysis or gasification, the innovative thermal conversion process is said to be ‘extremely efficient’. That’s because it does not require sorting, drying or pre-treatment of waste.

Synpet insists it will be able to treat all waste containing carbon, whatever its quality. It has been running a 15-tonne demo production unit near Istanbul since 2016.

Kolmar ceo Ruth Sandelowsky is excited about the project. He believes it ‘presents an interesting opportunity to create service provision with access to pyrolysis oil, supply chain optionality, and optionality with cracker operators’.