The project for the chemical recycling of plastic waste in Wesseling is one of the selected funding projects of the EU Innovation Fund.

 

According to the German Federal Ministry of Economics and Climate Protection (BMWK), a total of 41 projects from 15 EU countries were preselected for the EU Innovation Fund, which has a funding volume of around 3.6 billion euros. Seven major decarbonization projects for industrial transformation in Germany are to be funded according to the will of the EU Commission, four of which come from North Rhine-Westphalia. The projects selected for NRW are to receive funding in this framework amounting to a three-digit million sum. According to the NRW Ministry of Economics and Climate Protection, they cover all aspects of the climate-neutral transformation of industry, from hydrogen production to chemical recycling and CO₂ capture. According to the ministry, the "MoReTec" (Molecular Recycling Technology) project selected for funding by the LyondellBasell chemical group at its Cologne-Wesseling site aims to build an innovative plastics recycling plant on a pilot scale. The plant will use the group's proprietary MoReTec technology to process mixed plastic waste into pyrolysis oil and pyrolysis gas to produce new plastics. The plant, which will split the pyrolysis products to produce new recycled-based plastics and chemicals, will reportedly run entirely on renewable electricity.
 

Sources:

• Pressrelease BMWK (July 17, 2023)
• wirtschaft.nrw (July 18, 2023)
• Photo: © LyondellBasell