The project aims to return previously non-recyclable waste to the material cycle.
 

According to a statement, the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) has created the Carbon Cycle Lab (CCLab) development platform for this purpose. Other institutes and industrial companies are also involved in the federally funded project. Among other things, the project aims to research the chemical recycling of plastic waste and transfer it to a pilot scale in order to recover previously non-recyclable waste from industry and commerce, households, agriculture and forestry for the material cycle. Plastic waste often cannot be recycled mechanically due to its chemical composition or because of impurities. The aim of chemical recycling technologies is to synthesise new plastics from it. According to the KIT, harmful and disruptive substances are destroyed or separated out during the process. The products are said to be suitable as raw materials for the production of new plastics. In an earlier project (bioliq®), KIT researchers had already developed a recycling process for biological residues and renewable raw materials, which is now being expanded to include the chemical recycling of plastic waste as part of the CCLab. ‘We are taking a lot of what we have learned at bioliq® into the CCLab,’ says Professor Frederik Scheiff, head of the Chemical Energy Carriers division at the Engler-Bunte Institute of the KIT. “For example, we were able to convert plastic oils into chemical raw materials for the first time in the last operating campaign,” says Scheiff. ‘We have learned how to develop and scale up such technologies, and we have been able to show that they can also be used to convert complex plastic waste that could not previously be recycled into chemical raw materials .’ Prof. Dieter Stapf, head of the Institute for Technical Chemistry at KIT, adds: ’We live in a country where energy and raw materials are scarce and expensive. Our future raw materials are waste. Recycling them is efficient and cost-effective.’ Recycling also helped to reduce dependence on fossil fuel imports.
 
Sources:

• KIT press release (4.3.2025)
• Photo: © KIT / Markus Breig