Chemically recycling plastic in Sweden: RAZOR

Billions of tons of plastic have been made over the decades, but around 90 percent of it hasn't been recycled.
Plastic in itself is not so hard to recycle. The problem is that it's actually too cheap and simple to produce from residues from refineries and from the gas industry.
Emma Keeling is in Sweden, where Professor Heinrick Thunman and his team has developed a process that can chemically recycle all kinds of plastic so that future production will not have to use more fossil fuels.

[@muhammadaltaf9651]

Thank you sooooooooooooooooooo much Sweden for recycling plastic in the most environment friendly way.

[@shane3363]

how is the new plastic pelletized?

[@TheHk1966]

That comes later on. This plant just depolymerizes plastics into constituent hydrocarbons. These hydrocarbons are made into plastics offsite at a dedicated plastics plant. Pellets are made by chopping extruded new plastic that is made from constituent hydrocarbons from the old plastic. Hope that makes sense?

[@francescopaci9435]

what's the difference with gassification? Gassification is not easier way to transform plastic in liquid new materials?

[@TheHk1966]

This is a continuous fluid bed reactor which is designed to efficiently gasify hydrocarbons. This is the essential unit of almost all newer oil refineries and represents a repurposing of existing technology.

[@trevorrix9766]

Nuclear Energy would be the best clean way to provide the thermal energy needed for the process of steam cracking. Wood chips are an environmentally bad way to provide thermal energy, for many obvious reasons.