MOSCOW (MRC) -- PureCycle Technologies, Inc., the innovative recycled polypropylene (PP) producer, is in plans to start operating its flagship PP recycling plant at Ironton, Ohio, which will convert carpet scraps based on PP composite material into high-purity pellets, at scale in late 2022, according to Today's Machining World.
The company has ordered two extruders from Germany-based plastics machinery manufacturer KraussMaffei for this plant.
PureCycle uses proprietary technology licensed from The Procter & Gamble Company (P&G) to recycle waste PP into ultra-pure recycled-PP for applications spanning consumer goods, automotive, building and construction, and industrial uses.
“Thanks to PureCycle’s technology, we have succeeded in removing all impurities, odors, and dye residues from carpet remnants so that the PP pellets produced are equivalent to virgin material, both in terms of appearance and mechanical properties,” explains Brett Hafer, VP Manufacturing at PureCycle. “Now that PureCycle has passed the pilot phase successfully, we are building the world’s most modern PP recycling line.”
The core component of the new PureCycle line is the extraction process. The technique cleans melted PP composite material from dye residues, foreign plastics and odors, providing for a pure PP melt and a recycled, re-usable co-product. The circulating solvent is then purified and returned to the process.
Two twin-screw extruders from KraussMaffei serve for melting the dry PP carpet scraps that are used as feedstock for the PureCycle process.
After passing PureCycle’s first processing stage, the cleaned melt is fed into the degassing extruder specifically designed to effectively remove any high-molecular residual monomers. Volatile matter like solvent residues and other impurities, such as adhering odorous substances and low-molecular compounds, are gently separated from the melt. The result is pure PP pellets that can easily be used to manufacture a wide variety of products by injection molding or extrusion coating processes.
As MRC reported earlier, this summer, PureCycle Technologies reached an agreement with The Augusta Economic Development Authority to build its first US cluster facility to produce ultra-pure recycled (rPP) from waste PP. The 200-acre location in Augusta Corporate Park will create over 80 manufacturing jobs with an initial USD440 million investment to primarily fund three lines of 130 million pounds of capacity during Phase 1 of the project. Augusta-Richmond County was selected based on feed and product delivery supply-chain efficiencies, community support, a skilled labor market, and Georgia’s business-friendly environment.
We remind that in May 2020, Total signed an agreement with PureCycle Technologies to develop a strategic partnership in plastic recycling. As part of the agreement, Total undertakes to purchase part of the output of PureCycle Technologies’ future facility in the United States and to assess the interest of developing a new plant together in Europe. PureCycle Technologies uses an innovative, patented technology to separate color, odor and any other contaminants from plastic waste feedstock to transform it into virgin-like rPP. The company, which was to begin construction on its first plant in Ohio (USA) last year, will produce 48,000 tons of rPP.
According to MRC's ScanPlast report, PP shipments to the Russian market were 727,160 tonnes in the first six months of 2021, up by 31% year on year. Supply of homopolymer PP and block-copolymers of propylene (PP block copolymers) increased. Supply of statistical copolymers of propylene (PP random copolymers) subsided.
MRC