Worn Again Technologies of Nottingham, UK, has launched its pilot R&D facility for chemical recovery of PET from non-reusable textile and PET bottle and packaging waste.
The chemical process uses solvents to separate, decontaminate and extract PET polymer and cellulose from the waste, to be used again as raw materials, the company said in a statement.
With the capacity to process 80kilo batches, the facility is located at CPI, a technology and innovation centre in Redcar, England.
Designed and built with the help of leading equipment providers, the plant aims to develop further process data, knowledge and understanding as part of a move towards industrialisation of the technology.
CPI was chosen as the facility to host the plant in view of the technical excellence it provides to help accelerate technologies to market, Worn Again said.
“The pilot is a significant step in developments as it will allow us to confirm and further optimise the different steps in the process in one unit, accelerating our engineering development to the next step of a demonstrator plant,” said Nick Ryan, Worn Again Technologies’ technology director.
The pilot facility, according to Cyndi Rhoades, founder of Worn Again Technologies, is the “next tangible step” in bringing the company closer to a scalable, commercially viable industrial process.