Plas-TCat™ for Mixed Plastic Recycling

Mixed Plastic Chemical Recycling: Plas-TCat™

Many plastic packaging materials are unable to be recycled and are instead thrown away after a single use, often landfilled, incinerated, or littered, polluting land and oceans.

To address this problem, Anellotech has created Plas-TCatTM: unlike the existing multi-step processes which first liquefy plastic waste back into low value “synthetic oil” intermediate products, Plas-TCat is a one-step thermal-catalytic recycling technology that can convert mixed plastic waste feedstocks, including composite films and other difficult-to-recycle materials, into the same basic chemicals (such as benzene, toluene, xylenes, ethylene, and propylene) that are used today to make most virgin plastics. Once utilized across the industry, Plas-TCat will be able efficiently recycle single-use and other plastics, one of the world’s most urgent challenges.


Press Release April 2022

FIVE REASONS THAT PLAS-TCAT IS A GAME CHANGER

  1. The Plas-TCat process is a new, direct route to olefins and aromatics from low value plastic waste feedstock with competitive economics expressed by double digit IRR using market prices (not tipping fees) for recycled plastics and no premium for the products.
  2. Makes valuable products from range of feedstocks at attractive yields
    • Can feed all major plastics due to proprietary catalyst and fluid bed reactor-regenerator system design.
    • Product slate can be controlled to maximize aromatics (BTX) or olefins (ethylene, propylene)
    • Yields can be predicted based on plastic’s chemical composition
    • Composites, mixed plastics can be used with minimal presorting of feedstocks (other than PVC reduction)
  3. No major chemical upgrading of Plas-TCat products is required
    • Aromatics and low molecular weight olefins and paraffins are ready for purification and sale or direct feeding into the downstream steam crackers purification trains.
    • No upgrading is required in ethylene furnaces as for thermal pyrolysis output.
  4. LCA assessment (preliminary) indicates potential to reduce CO2 emissions up to 50% compared to the virgin monomers.  
  5. Technology is scalable. Anticipated full scale commercial plants should exceed 200,000 metric tons per year of olefins and/or BTX production from a single reactor system processing majority polyolefin plastic waste.
    • The Plas-TCat catalyst leaving the regenerator serves as a heat carrier to provide the heat for the fluidized bed reactor.
    • Reactor scaling is not limited by heat transfer (multiple reactors, in parallel, are not required to scale as in liquid thermal pyrolysis).


Anellotech is currently seeking forward looking companies to join them in accelerating the development and the commercial implementation of the Plas-TCat technology. For more information, please contact: Information@anellotech.com

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