WATCH: Cooperation on the chemical recycling of plastic waste

On September 9th 2019, the WATCH project was kicked-off. This 4-year SBO project (Strategic Basic Research) is funded by VLAIO and supported by Catalisti, the Flemish spearhead cluster for chemistry and plastics. The project is a collaboration between UGent (project coordinator), KULeuven and VITO. The industrial advisory board consists of AVGI, Borealis, Dow, GOVI, Indaver, INEOS, OVAM ,Pervatech Ravago, Recticel, Total, Unilin, Covestro and Catalisti.

The WATCH project focuses on the chemical recycling of plastic waste and will work on 4 different types of plastic waste: mixed polyolefinic waste, multilayer packaging, PS and PUR. The four complementary research groups will pool their scientific infrastructure and expertise together to improve chemical understanding of plastic waste conversion for the production of key chemicals such as short olefins, waxes, aromatics, styrene and diols. In this project, the aim is to develop, demonstrate and compare three different technologies for the conversion of plastic waste to liquid energy carriers and chemicals via (catalytic) pyrolysis in an innovative reactor concept.

Contact

Elisabeth Delbeke
T +32 9 331 17 51
Elisabeth.Delbeke@UGent.be