CIRCULAR BTX: Anellotech’s Aromatics from Mixed Waste Plastics, Now Available
by Jim Lane (Biofuels Digest) News has arrived from the gang at Pearl River that Anellotech is offering drum-quantity product samples of aromatics produced from recycled mixed waste plastics. The recycled benzene, toluene and xylenes, known as CIRCULAR BTX, will be available to current and potential commercial partners.
The production story
The samples are made at Anellotech’s TCat-8 facility — a fully automated, 30-meter-tall pilot plant located inside Trecora’s Silsbee, Texas facility— during ongoing studies demonstrating Anellotech’s Plas-TCat catalytic pyrolysis technology. TCat-8 can operate 24/7 and converts a representative mixed waste plastics feedstock — including all major plastic types, with the exception of PVC, into BTX, light olefins and paraffins.
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Plas-TCat employs one thermal catalytic reactor to convert a broad range of mixed waste plastics into the same valuable chemical feedstocks used today to make virgin plastics.
These include benzene, toluene and xylene (BTX) as well as ethylene, propylene and butylene (light olefins).
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With the completion of these continuous process runs Plas-TCat is now at Technology Readiness Level 6.
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This is re-virginized plastic.
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First, what is Anellotech? It’s a tech company focused on commercializing production of cost-competitive renewable chemicals and fuels from non-food biomass or waste plastics. Its patented Bio-TCat technology is a thermal catalytic process for converting biomass into benzene, toluene and xylene, which are chemically identical to petroleum-based counterparts. Itr was part of leveraging the Bio-TCat platform for Plas-TCat, a process technology aiming to convert mixed waste plastics into commodity chemicals such as olefins and aromatics.
From the same mixed plastic feedstock, the new process can be adjusted to two different production modes: ‘Hi-Olefins’ which emphasizes the production of olefins such as ethylene and propylene or ‘Hi-BTX’ which will produce mostly aromatics like BTX (benzene, toluene and xylene) and paraxylene – the key component needed for PET.
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“Anellotech can offer BTX samples made directly from mixed waste plastics to potential commercial partners to encourage engagement with our program,” says David Sudolsky, President and CEO of Anellotech. “Unlike thermal pyrolysis, Plas-TCat makes BTX and other chemicals in one reactor, providing true 100-percent recycled BTX (not mass balance approach) for studies today and eventual future commercial use.” Anellotech’s fully developed and patented Bio-TCat technology is an efficient thermal catalytic process for converting biomass into benzene, toluene and xylenes, which are chemically identical to their petroleum-based counterparts. READ MORE
