UK-based petrochemical Mura Technology announced it has signed an offtake agreement with Neste for feedstock made from plastic waste.
The feedstock will be produced at Mura’s HydroPRS facility in Teesside, UK, which was commissioned in October 2023 and is expected to start operations mid-2024.
Teeside is the world’s first commercial-scale plastics recycling facility deploying the Mura’s hydrocracking technology. The facility will initially have a capacity of 20,000 tonnes a year, with scope to triple the initial capacity. It will process flexible and rigid mixed plastics, including films, that cannot currently be mechanically recycled.
Unlike pyrolysis, the HydroPRS process utilises water under high pressure and high temperature to convert post-consumer, multi layered, flexible and rigid plastics such as films, pots, tubs, and trays into high yields of hydrocarbon feedstocks. Independent Life Cycle Assessments (LCAs) based on the first site at Teesside have shown the HydroPRS process provides 80% carbon emissions saving by diverting unrecyclable plastic away from incineration. When compared to fossil oil-based feedstock, however, HydroPRS outputs products with an equivalent or lower Global Warming Potential, whilst saving up to five barrels of oil for every tonne of plastic waste processed.
Neste will convert the oil-like chemically recycled product outputted by the HydroPRS process. The Finnish company acts as a refiner, whereas the actual liquefaction process is done by a partner.
“Our technology, soon to be deployed in our first-of-its-kind UK facility, has unlocked new value in plastic waste streams previously considered to be unrecyclable,” said Dr Steve Mahon, CEO of Mura Technology. “We look forward to working with the polymers industry around the world as we expand across the US, Europe, and Asia.”
The agreement with Neste follows a previously announced offtake agreement with Dow.