In April of this year, Agilyx Corporation, a pioneer in the advanced recycling of post-use plastics, and Toyo Styrene Co., an affiliate of Denka Company, announced a project to build a new advanced recycling facility aimed at recycling post-use polystyrene plastic back to a styrene monomer. The plant will be based on technology developed by Agilyx, which that company has licensed to Toyo Styrene. The new Toyo facility will be located near the company’s plant in the Chiba Prefecture of Japan.
Despite the difficulties caused by the pandemic and the ensuing unavoidable long-distance collaboration, the two companies report good progress on the project, which has now reached the 30% completion of the final phase of the Front End Loading (“FEL”) design development (FEL3).
The advanced recycling facility is designed to convert up to 10 tons per day of post-industrial and post-consumer polystyrene into a styrene monomer that will be purified using Toyo Styrene’s proprietary purification process. Styrene monomer produced from this process has a significantly lower carbon footprint compared to virgin monomer. The facility is on target to meet the initial goal of commencing operations in early 2022.