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CHEMPET - PROJECT OVERVIEW

Today, massive amounts of plastics are still used for a broad range of consumers and industrial applications.
Among these, PET represents the 7,4% of all plastics and it is mainly used for the manufacturing of food packaging – including bottles and trays as well as films and fabrics.

The current PET recycling technologies are mainly based on mechanical recycling processes starting from PET rich collected wastes. Mechanical recycling allows to obtain a poor-quality recycled PET – mechanical recycled PET, while the input material must be highly treated and washed. Nevertheless, the obtained mechanically recycled PET is still impure and cannot be newly used for food packaging due to hygienic and safety issues.
The limits of the current PET plastics recycling methods and determine therefore serious burdens which are linked with a still poor domestic recycling capability within the European Union.
Beside the economics, most severe consequences are often related with dramatic environmental consequences like the dispersion of plastic wastes into the environment.

The Chempet Project

The ChemPET project targets actually the current recycling gap of plastics by offering a high-tech solution for the regeneration of PET polymers and turning PET wastes actually in a valuable feed stock for producing new virgin-like crPET.
This is possible thanks the production of a stable and safe intermediate – BHET, which allows exactly a new polymerization into PET. This crPET – chemically recycled PET, can be considered as a virgin polymer which is suitable even for food grade applications.

The ChemPET project aims therefore at reaching the following objectives:

  1. Demonstration of medium-high scale operational condition for a ChemPET-based PET recycling plant until reaching the capability of producing 100 ton per day of BHET intermediate
  2. Demonstration of plant economics and adjustment of production parameters for sustaining a large-scale production
  3. Demonstration of BHET suitability as intermediate chemical commodity for the manufacturing of different crPET-made goods
  4. Improve process economy as well as the capability of recovering by-products obtained from PET rich wastes
  5. Establishment of stakeholder network worth for replicating the ChemPET approach at European and Global Level
  6. Pursue a sound communication and dissemination strategy aimed at showing the benefits offered by ChemPET to industry and consumers.

As 2021, the ChemPET project faced several contingencies directly and indirectly related with the COVID-19 pandemic crisis and international markets turmoil.
The ongoing market fluctuations concerning energy, oil, and access to raw materials, including the PET rich wastes, imposed Garbo to review the previously accomplished engineering for the ChemPET plant.
This implied the update of the previous plant engineering in order to reach the target performances in terms of process volumes, sizes, and yields. These are the necessary goals for ensuring an adequate process economy. The review of the previous engineering allowed then to update the plant layout configuration, equipment specifications and technical schemes including adjusted designs and process diagrams.
The main review concerned the plant-resizing moving to 55-65 ton per day as BHET production target. The new design will consider both market demand and raw materials fluctuations without compromising profitability and effectiveness.
At the same time Garbo, continued the networking in order to reach both national and European stakeholders.
Concerning the exploitation and dissemination, Garbo continued to publish articles on specialized reviews.

Garbo is implementing at medium scale – until 55-65 ton per day of BHET production, an innovative process technology able to produce chemical recycled PET at very high efficiency – ChemPET.
The advantages brought by ChemPET relates with the possibility of using a heterogeneous mix of PET wastes, including dyed PET, which is otherwise unrecyclable at the state of the art, and limits therefore an effective circularization of the entire plastics value chain.

A major Project advancement consist in the possibility of obtaining a chemical intermediate – BHET, which can be easily polymerized in crPET – Chemical Recycled PET. BHET is completely safe, and it can be easily moved.
The obtained chemically recycled PET has purity and quality features which allow its use for food grade applications. This is currently the only technology capable of producing virgin-like crPET at very high efficiency and starting from both transparent and dyed PET wastes.

Beside the technical advancements, GARBO S.r.l. relies on a highly developed stakeholder network, active at national and European level. This further allows to immediately translate the research results into operational conditions, and to establish since now the cornerstones for a future PET circular value chain vision within the European Union.

The results from the present project will be although particularly relevant to demonstrate the suitability of ChemPET approach for the PET circularization and for its following scale-up at European level.
In details, the collaboration with waste collectors is particularly relevant for ensuring the continuity of PET supply thus maintaining appropriate manufacturing volumes regardless feedstock prices volatility.

The ongoing and forthcoming collaborations at local level will also determine immediate societal impact thanks the expected activation of a circular value chain for PET waste which will enable local consumers in directly benefit of a zero waste PET consumer products life cycle.