Turkish-Belgian chemical recycling company Synpet Technologies has announced plans to construct its first commercial recycling plant in Antwerp. Synpet, with the backing of the Kolmar Group - that acquired a stake in the company in a first capital round - will be investing some €100m in the project. The investment also gives Kolmar the exclusive right to the output of the new plant, under a supply agreement signed in October 2022.
Kolmar CEO Ruth Sandelowsky commented at that time that the investment supported Kolmar’s strategic ambition is to invest in renewable, bio and low carbon technologies to gain access to the associated products and markets, and to serve the chemical markets continuing and evolving needs. “This presents an opportunity to Kolmar to create service provision with access to pyrolysis oil, supply chain optionality, and optionality with cracker operators,” she said.
Synpet originally intended to build the facility in Genk (Belgium), but has now opted for Antwerp - ‘one of Europe's largest and most intensive petrochemical clusters' - instead. The companies have said they are aiming for start-up of the new plant in 2025. The project is expected to create around 70 jobs in Antwerp.
This first plant will have an initial capacity to process 180,000 tonnes of mixed plastic waste per year but the partners are striving for more, saying they aim reach a global processing capacity of 1,000,000 tonnes of plastic waste by 2030.
Founded in 2024, Synpet Technologies has developed proprietary technology that decomposes plastics and other various waste types to form pure hydrocarbons using water as the reagent, at a specific pressure and temperature in a wet environment. Unlike other processes such as pyrolysis or gasification, Synpet Technologies’ TCP (Thermal Conversion Process) process is extremely efficient and has the great competitive advantage of not requiring any sorting, drying or pre-treatment of waste upstream. All waste, whatever its quality, is eligible. As long as it contains carbon, the process is capable of processing it. At the end of the process, four products are obtained: renewable oil (naphtha) which can replace petroleum naphtha to produce new plastics and can create a true circular economy; natural gas with a high calorific value that can be used for thermal and electrical energy; biochar that can be used as fertiliser in agriculture or as a raw material, for example in cement kilns to replace coal and reduce general CO2 emissions; and a liquid organic fertiliser if the technology is applied to materials containing nitrogen, phosphorus, etc., which are present in household waste and municipal sewage sludge.
A 15-tonne demo production unit has been operating since 2016 near Istanbul in Turkey. It has been tested and validated by the German certification office TÜV-SUD and various petrochemical companies.