Mura Technology and Dow announced plans to construct a chemical recycling plant in Bohlen, Germany. The facility is expected to deliver approximately 120 kilotons per annum of advanced recycling capacity at full run-rate.
The Böhlen, Germany, site, expected to be co-located with Dow’s manufacturing facilities, would enable a significantly larger capacity for plastic waste and considerably increase the supply of fully circular feedstock to the industry. This circular feed, derived from plastic waste currently destined for incineration or landfill, would reduce reliance on virgin fossil-based feedstocks and would enable Dow to produce a recycled plastic which is in high demand from global brands, particularly for high-end sensitive markets like food and medical applications.
Dow aims to take advantage of co-location benefits, which could significantly reduce the cost of scaling advanced recycling facilities. In addition, co-location of Mura’s facilities at Dow locations is expected to reduce carbon emissions by minimizing transportation of the offtake and as gas output from the advanced recycling process can be converted back to plastics, thereby ensuring no by-products go to waste.
Hydrothermal recycling
Mura’s HydroPRS (Hydrothermal Plastic Recycling Solution) advanced recycling process is unique, as it uses supercritical steam to convert most forms of plastics – including flexible and multi-layer plastics, which have previously been deemed ‘unrecyclable’ – back into the original oils and chemicals from which they were made. These can then be used to create new, virgin-equivalent plastic products which are even suitable for food contact packaging.
Repeated recycling
With Mura’s process, the same material can be recycled repeatedly, meaning it has the potential to eliminate single use plastic and prevent it from going to landfill or being incinerated. This has additional carbon benefits, with advanced recycling processes expected to save approximately 1.5 tons of carbon dioxide per ton of plastic recycled, compared to incineration and reducing reliance on fossil-based feedstocks.