Since 2017 Solve has been actively developing chemical recycling technology and plants under it's European trademark Plastic Adios (EUTM 017934767).
Plastic Adios is committed to making mixed plastic waste recycling profitable, accessible and safe around the world.
Uniting investors, petrochemical and recycling industries on a single technological platform with the purpose of reducing the anthropogenic impact of humankind on the environment and improve the efficiency rate at which we use our planet's natural resources.
Our scope of work on a chemical recycling project:
- Project technology and concept design
- Shipping, installation and testing of equipment
- General technical and construction supervision
- Business plan and financial projections
- Personnel requirements and training
- Setup and ancillary machinery requirements
We transform plastics and tyres into petrochemical products
Regional recycling plants
BOO and BOOT contracts
4.0 waste collection
We install reverse vending machine integrated networks
We design and operate financially motivated circular economy
Large scale solutions
Sorting, transforming and energy generation with zero emissions.
As a result of energy technological processes, residual plastic wastes, including mixed wastes, under the influence of temperature up to 400 ° C in an oxygenless environment can be converted:
- Into gas
- Then after passing hot gas through the condensation process - into different final products: synoil, mazut, paraffin, heating oil, gas oil and naphtha.
After this kind of processing the collected materials are sent:
- To a petrochemical plant to be used in the production of new plastics.
- Or directly to the ultimate consumer, replacing mazut or diesel fuel of fossil origin with cleaner synthetic fuel.
Since 2018 the European Commission regulations are aimed at gradual increase in utilization of secondary raw materials in the production of plastics, including by higher performance targets of the processing.
So by 2030 all disposable plastics in the EU, which are now being disposed of or burned, will be profitably processed, including by close cooperation with chemical industries.
Products of chemical processing can partially replace fossil energy and save fossil raw materials, reducing greenhouse gas emissions to 40%.
A simple and coherent scheme of works will help to achieve this:
- Separate waste collection increases the efficiency of sorting by waste sorting plants
- Waste sorting plants supply chemical factories with plastic wastes.
- Plastic wastes are processed into highly profitable petrochemical products such as diesel, gas oil and naphtha.
- Gas oil and naphtha are widely used in petrochemical and chemical industries to create all kinds of chemicals and products, especially plastics.
- Customers use gas oil and naphtha to produce their own products.
- Consumers and companies use and dispose of products.
- Wastes are collected and sorted by waste management companies.
Isn't plastic recycled anymore?
One of the headline-making cases of eco-activism of the last ten years is of course «the plastic disaster».
Not everyone knows that 60% of everything that surrounds us is composed or produced with polymers, that is.. plastic.
The petrochemical industry using various technologies produces plastics from oil and natural gas. In household wastes proportion of plastics can reach up to 15%, and in large cities like Moscow and St. Petersburg - up to 20%.
Most plastic wastes are recycled mechanically all over the world. And only some types of plastic are actively processed:
- PET bottles
- Different types of polyethylene and polypropylene films (bags and limpid packaging stretch films).
Sorted by hand, plastic waste is sent for recycling, where it is turned into granules, which are used in the production of new plastic products, mostly the same PET bottles and stretch films.
At the same time during the repeated mechanically processing cycles, each time the plastic loses its quality.
But there's a problem. Based on international experience, only 30% of plastic can be recycled this way in a country where there is no separate waste collection. What to do with the rest of the plastic waste, which makes up 20% of all household wastes?
Low-temperature pyrolysis is a chemical process of thermal decomposition of polymers (plastic, car tires, etc.) heated up from 70 ° C to 400 ° C in an inert atmosphere without oxygen.
Pyrolysis repeats the natural process of transformation of the remains of living organisms, flora and fauna inside the Earth’s crust, where all of it is decomposed in an oxygenless atmosphere under pressure and heated by the Earth’s core, turning into oil and gas. Most polymers in the world are made from oil and gas. Thus pyrolysis is a process of converting waste products from oil and gas back to oil and gas.
The pyrolysis is processed inside a metal barrel, called the "reactor" by heating the walls of the barrel with fuel burners in the "furnace" of the reactor. Due to the lack of oxygen rapid decomposition of the polymers is achieved
What is most important is that there is no direct interaction between polymers and the flames of the burners. This means that toxic elements that contain wastes never enter the atmosphere.
Due to the subsequent condensation of the gases generated in the reactor from decomposed polymers, we get light oil products and light gases similar to natural ones. Oil products and gases can be used in the form of fuel or raw material for the production of new polymers such as plastic or car tires, thus creating circular economy (closed-loop economy)
38 cubic meters (9 tons) of polymer wastes (plastic or rubber) are loaded by a telescopic handler into a cylindrical pyrolysis reactor. After tight closure of the reactor door and mandatory check of all safety elements by shift engineers, the system automatically starts heating the reactor furnace.
The pyrolysis process starts at about 70 degrees Celsius. The polymers begin to decompose in the oxygenless hot atmosphere of the reactor. The gas obtained from the decomposition of polymers in a pyrolysis reactor is called synthetic gas.
Synthetic gas enters the separator, where heavy fractions are deposited such as paraffin or fuel oil, and light fractions enter the condensation unit. In condensers, synthetic gas passes through cooling pads, transforming gas into liquid oil products - diesel and naphtha.
After passing through the condensation unit, the residue gas loses up to 80% of its temperature and enters the cleaning system with scrubbers and filters. This allows to prepare the gas for entry into the temporary gas storage system, from where the control system recirculates the gas to the furnace burners to heat the reactor up to the pyrolysis temperature at the start or during the operation of the pyrolysis furnace to maintain the reaction.
Synthetic gas treatment, storage and recycling system allows to use absolutely all the energy contained in the polymer wastes with the most efficiency, and makes Solve units energy-independent, it means no external sources of energy are required, except electricity.
All emissions from the reactor furnace enter the system of complex cleaning and cooling of exhaust gases, then are passed through the automatic supervision of the pollution particles analyzer and after this enter the atmosphere through the tube of the plant. Pyrolysis processing is the cleanest way to recycle polymer wastes. CO2 emissions do not exceed 450 kg per ton of waste, which is five times less than burning.
After finishing the pyrolysis cycle and after the conversion of the polymers into synthetic gas, a small carbon residue always remains inside the reactor. After lowering the temperature of the reactor to 50 degrees, black carbon is discharged into a vacuum container. Then the workers begin to prepare the reactor and all systems for the next pyrolysis cycle.
Total amount of time for one pyrolysis cycle takes from 7 to 18 hours, depending on the type, moisture content and purity of the polymer wastes loaded into the reactor. From one pyrolysis cycle of 9 tons of dry homogeneous polymer wastes we get up to 80% of light oil products, 5% of carbon residue and up to 15% of excess synthetic gas.
Our pyrolytic equipment works with just about any type of
plastic, consistently generating cheap eco-fuel in a process without
emissions, toxic residue or harmful microplastics.
Depending on the basic material (a type of plastic or rubber) certain products can be obtained. The wastes morphology alternates from one region to another. The exact amount and the name of products that can be obtained by pyrolysis will be determined after processing a test waste lot.
Depending on the needs, it is possible to organize the import of polymers based on the long-term contracts in order to receive products that are more suitable for the customer tasks:
- Diesel fuel Euro 5
- Diesel fuel Euro 3
- Bunker fuel (in accordance with MARPOL VI)
- Heating oil
- Carbon black
- Metal cord (remains after pyrolysis of rubbers)
Annual performance characteristics
- 30,000 tons of plastic waste processing in minimum
- 21,500 tons of Euro 3/5 quality diesel fuel, bunker and heating raw products for petroleum chemistry
Annual financial ratio
- Sales € 9.2 million
- EBITDA 48%
- Net income before taxes 35%
ATTENTION! Calculations are based on real market and production information and on the tests carried out by SGS in 2018 and 2019 at an operating pyrolysis plant in Spain
Factory complex of complete cycle cluster
Storage site for imported raw materials (wastes from the EU) for 100,000 tons
Low-temperature pyrolysis plant with a total annual processing capacity of 100,000 tons
Diesel-run power plant of container type with a capacity of 10 MW
Semi-automatic sorting plant for solid household wastes with a capacity of 250,000 tons per year (for 1-1.5 million of population)
Annual performance characteristics of the cluster
- 100,000 tons of imported plastic wastes from the EU
- 75,500 tons of diesel fuel
- 187,500 tons of useful recyclable materials from MSW
Based on our experience of many years in project works on the territory of the Republic of Moldova, as well as after more than one hundred and fifty negotiations with government and business representatives from Latin America, Africa and FSU countries, in 2019 we developed a set model of a complete cycle industrial cluster, which will solve the main political, energy and social issues in most of developing countries.
Our model is a phased deployment of a full-scale sorting system processing into light oil products and power generation. The model includes the main stages as follows:
Export of raw materials from the EU countries and subsequent construction of a plant for processing plastic into light oil products, mainly diesel fuel, distribution of fuel on the local market and utilization in local power generation based on a module-type diesel power generating station fueled by the plant's basic product, Euro-3 diesel.
Part of the profit gained from the projects the company promises to invest in the development of a national system of waste treatment and sorting under our leadership. On a first-priority basis it is the construction of a sorting complex in the largest city (by population) or in agglomeration in the country.
The implementation of a comprehensive program is carried out by establishing a joint venture with local business representatives and the signing of an international investment memorandum with the government of the country. Our company undertakes the implementation of the EPC contract at all stages of the project and manages factories, carries out service operations and repair works.
Main advantages of the model
High speed of project implementation, since it is privately operated with minimum of government involvement and public resources.
Generation of diesel fuel for the domestic market and petrochemical products for export in countries with high energy prices, and where there are mostly no refineries and petrochemical companies
Diesel power plant of container type which is able to meet the peak line loads and which is powered by our basic diesel fuel product GOST 305-2013
First of all the most profitable and quickselling part of the project is built, which allows to generate a positive cash flow starting from the first year of the project
Reshaping of high-quality secondary raw materials for further processing in following categories: aluminum, metal, paper and PET
Tangible political benefits for local politicians:
- The implementation of the waste sorting and processing program
- Attraction of European investors
- GDP Growth of the country
- Possibility to implement populist and election ploy related to fuel and energy
- Opportunity to increase the lending in international financial organizations for the environmental plans of development.