Neste, Borealis, and Covestro are closing the loop for the automotive industry through a new collaboration. Finland-based Neste and Austria’s Borealis are chemically recycling tyres at the end of life into base chemicals that Germany-based Covestro then uses to produce polycarbonate.
At the first stage, old tyres are liquefied into oil via pyrolysis. Neste then refines the pyrolysis oil into a high-quality raw material for chemicals and polymers manufacturing.
Earlier this year, the Finnish refiner successfully applied its liquefaction technology to tyre waste. The material produced by Neste in the processing run fully met the relevant quality requirements, thus validating the suitability of chemical recycling for processing waste materials beyond plastics. During that trial run, Neste sourced the pyrolysis oil from Scandinavian Enviro Systems, a Swedish company that developed pyrolysis technology for extracting carbon black and oil from end-of-life tyres.
As part of the new collaboration, Neste supplies Borealis with the refined pyrolysis oil. Borealis then processes it into base chemicals phenol and acetone, which Covestro finally uses to produce polycarbonate. The material is then used to make new car parts like headlamps and radiator grills, with recycled content being attributed via an ISCC-plus certified mass-balance method.
Covestro is one the world’s largest polycarbonate producers. In 2021, it launched the first grade of climate-neutral polycarbonate. Last year, Covestro reached a major milestone with its own polycarbonate chemical recycling technology. The company is developing its chemolysis process to pilot scale to achieve a continuous process that can eventually be scaled industrially.
The first products based on the new collaboration are already available as each party has manufactured the first batch of their respective contribution to the project.
“Circularity requires cooperation, and this cooperation with our partners Neste and Borealis is testament to the possibilities at our disposal,” said Guido Naberfeld, senior vice president, head of sales and market development mobility at Covestro. “We are creating options to turn old tyres into new car parts again. With that, we are supporting our automotive customers and addressing an increasingly prominent question discussed across the value chain: How to match high-performance materials with recycled content? Projects like this can be the answer.”
Aside from polycarbonates, the project partners may also consider polyurethanes as a possible end product, which could also find its way into parts of the interior of a car.
The companies said in a statement that the potential to scale-up these types of developments should be considered when setting ambitious targets for future EU regulations, such as the End-of-Life Vehicles Regulation. That regulation mandates, for example, that 25% of plastic used to build new vehicles is recycled.
“This project can serve as a blueprint when it comes to establishing circularity in the field of plastics in cars,” said Jeroen Verhoeven, vice president value chain development for polymers and chemicals at Neste. “It shows how low-quality waste materials can be turned into very high-quality plastics. This is good news for the polymers and automotive industries as well as for the environment,” he concluded.