BASF is to invest €20 million into Quantafuel, a specialist for pyrolysis of mixed plastic waste and purification of pyrolysis oil.
Together, the partners aim to further develop Quantafuel’s technology for chemical recycling, consisting of an integrated process of pyrolysis and purification, towards optimising the output for the use as feedstock in chemical production.
Ina a second step, Quantafuel also plans to license the jointly developed technology to other parties.
Quantafuel plans to start up a pyrolysis and purification plant with a nameplate capacity of approximately 16,000 tonnes per year in Skive, Denmark, in the fourth quarter of 2019.
As part of the investment agreement, for a minimum of four years after the start-up of production of Quantafuel’s Skive plant, BASF will have a right to first refusal to all pyrolysis oil and purified hydrocarbons from this plant.
BASF will use these secondary raw materials in its ChemCycling project to develop the market for chemically recycling plastics with selected customers.
At BASF’s Ludwigshafen site, the recycled raw materials will be fed into the production Verbund, thereby partially replacing fossil resources.
Once the Quantafuel plant in Denmark reaches full capacity, BASF aims to deliver first commercial supply volumes of Ccycled products, meaning products based on chemically recycling plastic waste, to selected customers.
To increase commercial offers, the parties furthermore aim to build jointly owned plants to produce purified hydrocarbons via chemical recycling.
Hartwig Michels, President for Petrochemicals at BASF, said: “The investment underlines BASF’s commitment towards a sustainable use of resources and the development of a circular economy model for plastics.”
“Moreover, the partnership is a first step to build up a broad supply base for Ccycled products. This enables us to support our customers in achieving their sustainability targets.”
Kjetil Bøhn, CEO of Quantafuel, said: “We are course honoured that BASF has decided to invest both financial and human resources in our quest to become the leading technology company for recycling of a broad spectrum of mixed plastic waste based on our unique purification step.”
“Our longstanding strategic partner Vitol, the world’s largest independent energy trader, has agreed to open our existing cooperation to enable the collaboration between BASF and Quantafuel.”
“We now have the foundation to establish production capacity on a scale that could have a meaningful impact on the global environmental challenges with waste plastic.”