MyReplast Up-Cycling

Italy-based chemicals company Nextchem has introduced MyReplast Upcycling, a technology to upcycle plastic waste into secondary raw materials with similar properties to that of virgin plastics. 

While plastic recycling to produce secondary polymers is becoming increasingly common, the secondary material produced is usually considered to have lower quality than virgin plastic. As a result, recycled polymers are not used often and if used, are mixed with large quantities of virgin polymers. 

With MyReplast Upcycling, Nextchem aims to build a range of secondary polymers that have similar physical and chemical properties as virgin materials, making them commercially viable for large-scale use. 

MyReplast Upcycling is a  thermo-mechanical process for regrading and compounding the selected materials, utilizing reactive extrusion. It allows to:

• Obtain top purity and quality of resultant granules.
• Improve the performance of outcoming granules through a phase of compounding which is based and formulated on the basis of client’s requests.

The technology has the following characteristics: 

• High flexibility to treat various types of incoming plastic waste, both from industrial production (for example, automotive components, food and industrial packaging waste), and from post-consumption, that is urban sorted waste.
• Quality of finished product: Nextchem claims that MyReplast Upcycling technology allows to produce high quality recycled polymers, with recycling efficiency of around 95%.

Nextchem has installed a plant in Brescia which has the capacity to produce 40,000 tons of recycled polymers per year. The MyReplast Up-Cycling technology is part of the Maire Tecnimont Green Acceleration strategy, which takes initiatives to industrialize the regeneration of plastic materials. 

The company is also working on two Waste to fuel projects: one with ENI, for the implementation of its “Waste to Hydrogen” plant in Porto Marghera (Venice, Italy) and on the construction of a “Waste to Methanol” plant in the Livorno (Italy) refinery.