VTT is looking to complement the selection of sustainable recycling methods with chemical recycling based on pyrolysis, which will turn nearly all plastics and their mixtures into oil.
VTT demonstrated in its two-year Business Finland WasteBuster project that chemical recycling offers an ecologically sound alternative to incineration and possibly to mechanical recycling as well.
In the WasteBusters project, long polymer chains of plastics and their mixtures were pyrolysed, and therefore chopped into shorter chains and in part even to monomers.
The resulted pyrolysis wax or oil can be processed with traditional methods at oil refineries.
Anja Oasmaa, Senior Principal Scientist at VTT, said: “Pyrolysis oil can be distilled into separate monomers, diesel, and other fractions, some of which can be used directly as fuels and some as raw materials for plastics and other chemicals.”
“Companies are interested in the fact that plastic waste can be turned into other chemicals besides plastics, which will then replace virgin fossil raw materials in a sustainable manner.”
“We want to develop this line of business with sustainable solutions in close cooperation with companies.”