Versalis (San Donato Milanese, Italy; www.versalis.eni.com) has launched a new project focused on the development of a new technology to chemically recycle plastic waste.
Versalis signed a joint development agreement with Italian engineering company, Servizi di Ricerche e Sviluppo (S.R.S.), which owns a pyrolysis technology that will be further developed to transform mixed plastic waste, which cannot be mechanically recycled, into raw material to produce new virgin polymers.
Versalis will leverage its technological and industrial expertise to build a first plant with a capacity of 6,000 tons per year at its Mantova. Italy site, with a view to progressively scaling up, starting at its sites in Italy.
“This project confirms Versalis’ strategy to develop a chemical recycling technology that complements mechanical recycling technology, which the company is already engaged in, with the goal to give new life to plastic waste,” said Daniele Ferrari, Versalis’ CEO. “The HoopTM project aims to create a theoretically endless plastic recycling process, producing new virgin polymers suitable for all applications and that are identical to polymers that come from fossil raw materials.”