Israel’s Plastic Back is pioneering a recycling solution for PVC. The innovative and low-temperature method yields high-quality crude oil.
The Tel Aviv-based company aims to recycle 100 000 tonnes of plastic waste by 2028. It notes that PVC is the third most produced polymer worldwide with an annual output of 40 million tonnes.
The solution can also be used to treat HDPE, LDPE, multi-layer plastics, mixed plastics.
Radical approach
The low-temperature chemical approach tackles challenging waste streams that cannnot be recycled through conventional mechanical and chemical methods. By breaking down plastic polymers into shorter liquid fractions, materials can be upcycled into new plastics and other everyday products.
The depolymerisation of plastic polymers is achieved through a ‘radical anion attack’ by which chemicals generate free radicals that target and break the carbon–carbon bonds in the polymer. These chemicals are recycled within the process, enhancing economic and environmental efficiency.
Benefits include:
- The process occurs at 100°C, a major improvement in energy efficiency compared to competitive methods requiring 500°C-1 200°C.
- It’s a solution for difficult-to-recycle material such as PVC, mixed, multi-layer, and contaminated plastics.
- Reduction of GHG emissions because there is no incineration.
Pilot planned
Latest trials demonstrate the solution works effectively for waste PVC, with a 10 litre lab-scale reactor processing 3kg per cycle. As a next step, a pilot site will be constructed in 2025 to process 50 tonnes per year.
Plastic Back says it can treat waste streams with up to 100% PVC by separating the chlorine from the carbon backbone and then converting the carbon chains to short liquid hydrocarbons.
The chlorines are separated with over 95% efficiency and the carbon backbone becomes available for depolymerisation. ‘Both the hydrocarbon fractions and the Cl-treated fractions can be upcycled in existing petrochemical processes,’ the researchers note.
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