Recycling of Mixed Polymer Consumer Waste to produce High Value Feedstocks to Promote the Circular Economy

The aim is to design a continuous process capable of converting large quantities of unsorted mixed plastic waste to petrochemical refinery intermediates, such as 'synthetic diesel and naphtha'. In brief, this research will employ a hydrocracking catalyst continuously fed with mixed polymers to enable the development of a commercial demonstrator plant (scaled to 60 kte per annum). There are three key stages of this development: the optimisation of the reaction system including use of raw materials, temperature and pressure; the determination of mass and energy balances for the system from which a process flowsheet will be developed, and finally, a full analysis of the impacts of the proposed plant using commercial life cycle assessment software developed at Manchester.

This research will be of great importance on a national and global scale; in 2012 the EU was producing around 25 MT of plastic waste and only 25% of this was recycled at similar economic value (mechanically), while another 33% was sent for energy generation by burning, which is notoriously inefficient as well as a source of dioxins and other harmful emissions. Production of diesel and naphtha feedstocks by the method described above retains the inherent value of the polymers, taking a significant step towards a circular UK economy, as well as representing a significantly less energy intensive method of gasoline production than the fractional distillation of crude oil.