MOSCOW (MRC) -- Worn Again Technologies
of Nottingham, UK, has launched its pilot R&D facility for chemical recovery
of PET from non-reusable textile and PET bottle and packaging waste, said Sustainableplastics.
The chemical process uses solvents to separate, decontaminate and extract PET
polymer and cellulose from the waste, to be used again as raw materials, the
company said in a statement.
With the capacity to process 80kilo batches, the facility is located at CPI,
a technology and innovation centre in Redcar, England.
Designed and built with the help of leading equipment providers, the plant
aims to develop further process data, knowledge and understanding as part of a
move towards industrialisation of the technology.
CPI was chosen as the facility to host the plant in view of the technical
excellence it provides to help accelerate technologies to market, Worn Again
said.
“The pilot is a significant step in developments as it will allow us to
confirm and further optimise the different steps in the process in one unit,
accelerating our engineering development to the next step of a demonstrator
plant,” said Nick Ryan, Worn Again Technologies’ technology director.
The pilot facility, according to Cyndi Rhoades, founder of Worn Again
Technologies, is the “next tangible step” in bringing the company closer to a
scalable, commercially viable industrial process.
As per MRC's DataScope, imports
of injection moulding PET chips in Russia increased by 13% in 2019 compared with
the same period a year ago and reached 126,600 tonnes. The same indicator
in January-December 2018 amounted to 111,700 tonnes, according to MRC"s
ScanPlast. The share of imports from China of bottled PET remained at the level
of the previous year and amounted to 87% in January - December 2019. |