Circular Economy BASF, Porsche, Best Successfully Complete Chemical Recycling Pilot Project

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BASF SE

Glatt Ingenieurtechnik GmbH

EDL Anlagenbau Gesellschaft mbH

Pörner Ingenieurgesellschaft mbH

The pilot plant has the capacity to recycle complex waste streams from end-of-life vehicles via chemical recycling in order to produce raw materials for new vehicle components such as foam for steering wheels.

Ludwigshafen/Germany – Porsche and BASF, in collaboration with technology partner Best - Bioenergy and Sustainable Technologies, have successfully completed a pilot project on recycling mixed waste from end-of-life vehicles. The pilot project demonstrates the recyclability of high-performance plastics from automotive shredder residues (ASR) together with renewable raw materials. This mixture of plastic, film, paint, and foam residues is so complex that it can currently only be thermally recycled. The pilot project shows that these automotive wastes can be recycled through gasification, a special type of chemical recycling, and returned to the automotive cycle.

This pilot project validates the viability of new sources of plastics and applications for chemical recycling in components. The ultimate goal is to source less primary material in the future and increase the proportion of recycled materials in vehicles. As part of the project, the chemically recycled material was used in the manufacturing process for steering wheels.

“Pilot projects like these allow us to evaluate how we can further develop the circular economy as a sustainability field at Porsche and how we can anchor chemical recycling in our strategy in the long term,” says Dr. Robert Kallenberg, Head of Sustainability at Porsche. “We are testing new recycling technologies with our direct partners in order to increase recyclate quotas, gain access to previously unusable recyclate sources and evaluate new processes for waste streams that are currently being thermally utilized.”

Porsche aims to use recycled materials in its vehicles and close resource cycles. In this context, the company has set itself the goal of increasing the proportion of verifiable secondary materials in its vehicle production. The pilot project can evaluate the potential of automotive shredder residues as a future recycling source and thus as a secondary raw material. It is thus a complementary alternative to mechanical recycling, which often cannot achieve this high quality. In addition, demand-driven scaling is possible in the future in connection with the so-called mass balance approach.

Defossilization: First fully non-fossil gasification for the production of new plastics

In this project, a combined waste stream consisting purely of automotive waste and biomass was recycled in a gasification process for the first time. The resulting recycled raw material - the so-called synthesis gas and its derivatives - replaced the fossil raw materials in BASF's integrated value chain. Within its production network, BASF then produces the polyurethane formulation needed for the steering wheel using a mass balance approach.

The recycling innovation uses modern gasification technology from Best to convert plastic waste and other residues into synthesis gas at high temperatures.

"In our plant, we have previously converted biomass such as wood or straw into chemical raw materials. In this pilot project together with BASF and Porsche, we have now used this gasification technology for the first time to convert complex plastic waste streams together with biomass into synthetic crude oil, known as syncrude," explains Dr. Matthias Kuba, Area Manager Syngas Platform Technologies at Best - Bioenergy and Sustainable Technologies in Vienna. "This form of chemical recycling has great potential for converting complex, mixed waste streams into new, valuable raw materials. It thus represents a sensible alternative to waste incineration."

Keeping the technology spectrum broad

"At BASF, we coordinate our sustainability efforts on our plastics journey which consists of three key steps in the product lifecycle: make, use and recycle. For the latter, we offer a wide range of recycling solutions because we are convinced that many methods need to complement each other to achieve recycling goals. We prioritize mechanical recycling and continuously improve its efficiency. At the same time, the type of waste and the degree of sorting determine which technology is best suited. We are convinced that complementary technologies such as chemical recycling, which includes pyrolysis, depolymerization and gasification, are necessary to further promote the circular economy and reduce the plastic waste that still ends up in landfills or is incinerated today," explains Dr. Martin Jung, President of BASF’s Performance Materials division. "To optimally utilize the various waste recovery options and further develop all technologies in parallel, the appropriate regulatory framework is essential."

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