Introduction

 

Plastics to Precious Chemicals (P2PC) is a VLAIO supported ICON research project and is situated in the category ‘Sidestream Valorization’.

The project aspires to cope with the urgent issue of plastics waste management. It targets the challenge of increasing plastic waste volumes and diversity on the one hand, as well as the establishment of circular material schemes instead of value destruction. The most important premise is that by pyrolysis, plastics can be a source of diverse chemical building blocks (‘precious chemicals’) whereby the intrinsic value of carbon chains is retained in high-value applications. 

More concrete, instead of using waste plastic as energy source or cracking it down to elemental units (e.g., ethylene, syngas) P2PC targets the extraction of valuable molecules by soft cracking, separation and chemical modification. This approach is quite novel and implies fundamental research.   

 

Objectives

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The overarching aim of this project is shortcutting the circle of plastics-to-chemicals, whereby carbon-carbon bonds are broken as much as needed, but as limited as possible, to retain their intrinsic value. Additionally, recognizing that environmental sustainability is not improved without actual future implementation, the innovative recycling system resulting from this project should yield an economically viable value chain. The final result will be a smart combination of feedstock selection, pyrolysis parameters, functionalization and downstream processing to convert plastics into precious chemicals.

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ChemStream

 

ChemStream is involved in the valorisation of the application of the pyrolysis products by converting them into dispersing agents, surfactants and emulsifiers.

 

Project website: https://catalisti.be/project/sidestream-valorization/p2pc/

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With support from Catalisti: