SK Chemicals has revealed plans to form a joint venture with Kelinle, a specialist in plastics recycling located in Shaanxi Province, China. This collaboration aims to establish the Feedstock Innovation Center (FIC) dedicated to processing waste plastics.

Source: PackagingEurope

The FIC will focus on converting waste plastics into feedstock. SK Chemicals asserts that it is the first chemical company in Korea to create a corporate entity with facilities designed for sourcing waste plastics, particularly among domestic firms pursuing depolymerization-based chemical recycling.

Project Overview

• The two companies intend to set up operations on a 13,200 m² idle site owned by Kelinle in Shaanxi Province, China.
• The process will transform waste into recycled raw materials.
• Kelinle will leverage its local network for feedstock procurement.
• SK Chemicals’ technology will be utilized for the pretreatment process, leading to the production of PET pellets.

Facility Design and Capacity

• The FIC will specifically convert end-of-life textiles, such as discarded blankets, and the fines generated during PET bottle shredding into feedstock for chemical recycling.
• It is expected to commence with an initial capacity of approximately 16,000 tonnes per year of PET pellets, with plans to expand to about 32,000 tonnes per year, which will meet most of the feedstock needs of SK Shantou.

SK Chemicals emphasizes that its depolymerization-based circular recycling approach breaks down waste plastics into molecular-level feedstock, which is then used to manufacture new plastics. The FIC will primarily focus on materials that have typically been incinerated due to their challenging nature for recycling, allowing for more cost-effective procurement compared to clear PET bottles.

Expected Impact

According to the company’s analysis, once the FIC is fully operational, it could ensure a stable supply of feedstock for the circular recycling business and potentially lower raw material costs for waste plastics by around 20%.

Related Developments

In other news, Vioneo partnered with Lummus Technology in August to leverage its Novolen polypropylene (PP) technology for the world’s first industrial-scale fossil-free plastics production complex in Antwerp, Belgium, utilizing green methanol as feedstock. The resulting plastics are expected to be fully traceable and CO2 negative, aimed at helping customers reduce their Scope 3 emissions.

Recently, TotalEnergies and CooperVision have incorporated certified renewable polypropylene, sourced from feedstocks such as sunflower and rapeseed oils, into blister packs for specific contact lens products. This polypropylene is part of TotalEnergies’ RE:newable range and, according to a Life Cycle Analysis, reduces CO2 equivalent emissions by 2.3 kg per kilogram of polypropylene when it replaces the fossil-based alternative.