VTT spins out Olefy to revolutionise circular plastic recycling
After four decades of thermal conversion technology development, VTT is spinning out Olefy technology in October – a process that can affordably convert most of the world’s waste plastics back to usable virgin grade materials an infinite number of times. VTT also announces eight patent applications for the process.
VTT has announced its plan to spin out a new company – Olefy Technologies. Its patent-pending technology can extract over 70% virgin grade plastics and chemical raw materials components from plastic waste. The new process can be done in a single step, majorly reducing the cost of plastic recycling and making recycling a preferred option for massive amounts of landfill-bound plastic waste that current methods are unable to process.
Today, only 8–10% of global plastics gets recycled primarily through mechanical recycling. However, only a limited share of plastic waste can be mechanically recycled. Furthermore, the resulting recycled plastic cannot be used in food packaging and pharma applications. Most plastic waste ends up in landfills. The opportunity to get virgin quality plastic from previously unusable plastic waste means that with Olefy it is economically viable to recycle most of the world’s plastics with minimal sorting by consumers and businesses. “Plastic waste is one of the five major global problems that VTT has strategically set itself to solve,” says Antti Vasara, CEO of VTT. “Olefy is a quantum leap in recycling that will change the way the world views plastic by making it truly circular and guiding us even faster towards carbon neutrality.”
A major advantage of the virgin quality materials produced from the Olefy process enables plastic to be recycled an infinite number of times.
“One of the problems with current recycling methods is that the quality degrades every time plastic is recycled. After several rounds of mechanical recycling, the quality becomes too poor, and the plastic is no longer usable and goes to a landfill. With the Olefy recycling process, the quality of the plastic is equal to virgin grade, so it can be recycled indefinitely and materials no longer need to end up in landfills,” says Matti Nieminen, Head of Technology at Olefy. “In essence, Olefy will make it possible for plastic to be a true part of the circular economy.”
“Demand for recycled plastics is growing much faster than the supply,” says Timo Sokka, Head of Business at Olefy. “All major brand owners are committed to fighting climate change, and they are responding to consumers’ growing concerns on waste accumulation by utilizing recycled materials in their products. Olefy responds perfectly to these challenges by making plastics recycling truly feasible on an industrial scale.”
Olefy technology shortly:
- Olefy is a novel industrial scale technology capable of recycling even low quality plastic waste in order to manufacture high value virgin grade plastics.
- The Olefy process is based on gasification. It breaks plastic waste into olefins and other valuable hydrocarbons.
- Yield of material recycling is as high as 70% of the feedstock.
- The product molecules created with the Olefy process are equal to oil-based virgin olefins (pharma and food quality).
- The robust process is tolerant to contaminants in the feed. This means easier pretreatment of the feed before the Olefy processing.
- The process components are based on mature technology.
- Technology readiness level (TRL) 5.
- Eight patents are pending.
