Novel Advanced Mechanical PVC Recycling Process

ReVentas将塑料垃圾视为一种宝贵的资源，迄今为止尚未得到充分利用。虽然人们高度关注为包装塑料（通常是聚乙烯（PE）、聚丙烯（PP）或PET）提供回收解决方案，但几乎没有做任何工作来为仅次于PE的第二大聚合物群体寻找回收解决方案/PP（聚烯烃）、PVC。这种材料通常用于建筑/公用事业应用，2021年消耗量为40公吨，英国消耗量为1.2公吨。阻止PVC大规模回收的挑战是邻苯二甲酸酯，邻苯二甲酸酯在材料中用作增塑剂，赋予PVC许多独特的性能。许多这些旧的添加剂现在被SVHC立法禁止或监管，并被纳入英国法律，美国/世界其他地区也有类似的法规。其结果是，废弃的PVC被限制进一步转售，大多数被填埋或出口到法规不太严格的国家，在那里它通常会燃烧产生碳氢化合物和氯化气体。ReVentas开发了一种新颖的专利溶剂回收技术，目前处于中试规模，可以净化污染物的聚合物，并生产类似原始的替代回收聚合物。这是为PE和PP开发的，但是该工艺适用于具有正确加工条件，溶剂和设备的任何类型的聚合物。这个可行性项目将看到ReVentas开发和证明该工艺可以修改为PVC，去除这些禁用/受管制的添加剂，并生产出一种类似于原始材料的材料，由我们的项目合作伙伴和战略石化合作伙伴进行市场适用性测试和评估，包括技术/商业验证研究，以评估这种新的PVC工艺的规模化潜力。该项目的结果将使ReVentas迅速扩大规模，如果该项目能够首先在实验室规模上展示该技术，那么已经确定的私人投资将该技术扩大到试验规模。

ReVentas see plastic waste as a valuable resource that has yet to be fully harnessed until now. Whilst there is a high level of focus on providing recycling solutions for packaging plastics, typically polyethylene(PE), polypropylene(PP) or PET, little to no work is being done to find recycling solutions to the 2 second largest polymer group by volume after PE/PP(polyolefins), PVC. This material is typically used in construction/utility applications with 40MT consumed in 2021 and 1.2MT consumed in the UK.The challenge preventing widescale recycling of PVC is the phthalates which are used as plasticizers in the material, giving PVC many of its unique properties. Many of these old additives are now banned or regulated by SVHC legislation, adopted into UK law, with similar regulations in the USA/RoW. The result is recycled-PVC being restricted from further resale with the majority landfilled or exported to countries will less stringent regulations, where it is typically burnt producing hydrocarbon and chlorinated gases.ReVentas have developed a novel, patented solvent based recycling technology currently at pilot scale which can purify polymers of contaminants and produce a virgin-like substitute recycled polymer. This has been developed for PE and PP, however the process is applicable to any type of polymer with the right processing conditions, solvents and equipment. This feasibility project will see ReVentas develop and demonstrate that the process can be modified for PVC, removing these banned/regulated additives and producing a virgin-like material tested and evaluated for market suitability by our project partners and strategic petro-chemcial partners, including technical/commercial validation studies to access the scale up potential of this new PVC process.The outcomes from the project will see ReVentas quickly scale the technology to pilot scale with private investment already identified if this project can demonstrate the technology at lab scale first.