Tech Company Explains Process to Convert Plastics into Chemicals

SEATTLE (Waste 360): As nearly 95 percent of plastic packaging material heads to landfills or combustors annually, Anellotech Inc., a sustainable technology company based in Pearl River, N.Y., has created a new process to convert plastic waste into chemicals that can be used to make new, virgin plastics.

Plas-TCat is the thermal catalytic technology for transforming plastic waste into virgin commodity chemicals for further use as raw materials in the production of polymers in a plastics circular economy.

With Plas-TCat, single and mixed streams of plastic waste are converted into chemicals used today to produce virgin polymers used to make and package everyday products in a range of industries, such as food and beverage, textile and automotive markets.

“Anellotech is looking to use this process in areas where plastic waste collection is not yet enforced and where proper collection infrastructure to isolate waste plastics streams is currently lacking, such as developing countries in Asia that have a significant amount of ocean plastics pollution,” says David Sudolsky, president and CEO of Anellotech. “By enabling payment in waste plastic conversion to valuable chemical products, Plas-TCat can provide economic incentives to tackle plastics pollution.”

Anellotech was founded in 2008 to develop a technology platform to create more sustainable products.

“We’ve created an innovative pathway to 100 percent bio-based drop-in aromatic chemicals and fuels from non-food biomass through the development of our Bio-TCat technology,” says Sudolsky. “This unique, patented bio-based process is based on using wood as feedstock. It is the first embodiment of a broader technology platform application of thermal catalytic pyrolysis of solid materials, which also is efficient in solid waste conversion (particularly plastic waste) into commodity chemicals.”

Anellotech is planning for the design and engineering of the first Bio-TCat commercial plant, alongside its development and licensing partners IFPEN and Axens. Engineering work has begun, and the next phase of construction is targeted for the second half of 2020.

Courtesy: www.waste360.com