Neste has launched a feasibility study aimed at investigating the potential for investing in capacity for processing liquefied waste plastic at its refinery in Porvoo, Finland.
The liquefied waste plastic - also called pyrolysis oil - that is produced through chemical recycling processes contains detrimental impurities that must be removed before it can be used as a drop-in petrochemical feed. To eliminate these impurities and to optimise the chemical composition of the material, intermediate refining is essential.
“We have to bridge the quality gap between unprocessed liquefied waste plastic oil and our customers’ raw material requirements,” explained Mercedes Alonso, Executive Vice President, Renewable Polymers and Chemicals at Neste.
The company has developed proprietary technologies to pretreat and upgrade liquefied waste plastic, which can be integrated into the refinery operations. The present study is examining the options for scaling up these pretreatment technologies to upgrade the processing capacity to 400,000 tons of liquefied waste plastic per year, which would represent a major step towards Neste’s target to process over 1 million tons of waste plastic per year from 2030 onwards.
“We are a forerunner in refining liquefied waste plastic into drop-in petrochemical feeds.
By scaling up our processing capabilities, we enhance our ability to process hard-to-recycle waste plastics and help enable our value chain partner to deliver substantial volumes of high-quality materials from recycled feedstock,” said Alonso.
“The planned new pretreatment and upgrading capabilities are part of our target to be the most sustainable refinery in Europe by 2030, while supporting the transition to circular polymers,” added Markku Korvenranta, Executive Vice President, Oil Products at Neste.
In 2021, Neste successfully concluded the first series of trial runs processing liquefied waste plastic in its Porvoo refinery. The runs demonstrated Neste's ability to upgrade liquefied waste plastic to drop-in solutions for plastic production and develop industrial-scale capabilities to upgrade recycled feedstocks. Only mixed post-consumer plastic waste was used during the trials. Additional trial runs with larger volumes will continue in the course of 2022.
To develop and build up the capabilities at its Porvoo refinery, Neste will evaluate possible options for innovation funding and works together closely with local authorities supervising environmental aspects of the investment. Following the feasibility study, investment decision readiness is targeted for 2023 and the gradual implementation is expected to start in 2024.