PC resin chemical recycling project
On 15 March, Mitsubishi Chemical Group (MCG Group) announced on its website that it has begun a study aimed at achieving a processing capacity of approximately 10,000 tons per year by 2030, seeking to commercialize the world's first chemical recycling of polycarbonate resin (PC resin) depolymerization.
PC resin chemical recycling project
Laboratory facilities for validation research are currently under construction at the Fukuoka plant and are scheduled to be completed by August 2023. Mitsubishi Chemical plans to complete demonstration experiments in the same fiscal year, followed by concrete commercialization studies. The demonstration project has been adopted as a subsidy project under the "FY2022 Demonstration Project for the Development of Plastic Resource Recycling System towards a Decarbonized Society" program of the Japanese Ministry of Environment.
Chemical recovery of PC resin
PC resin is a kind of engineering plastics with excellent transparency, impact resistance, heat resistance, dimensional stability, often used in automotive interior parts, headlights, building materials, etc. At present, used PC resin is usually recovered by mechanical recycling, where it is crushed, melted, and then reformed. However, if degraded resins or different resins are mixed together, there is the problem of not being able to obtain a recycled resin of sufficient quality. In contrast, chemical recycling, in which used PC resin is depolymerized, returned to monomers, and then polymerized again, allows a wider range of used resin to be regenerated into high-quality recycled PC resin.
MCG Group's goal is not just to build chemical recycling technology, but to build a PC resin recycling system. We plan to actively cooperate with companies that use PC resin in their products.
In addition, MCG Group will deploy high value added PC resin "XANTAR™" from 3 April 2023, aiming to further strengthen its engineering plastics business. The MCG Group will continue to provide high value-added, high performance products and contribute to a sustainable society through the establishment of recycling systems.
Restructure and strengthen engineering plastics business
On 8 February 2022, Mitsubishi Chemical Corporation (MCC) issued the Notice on Restructuring and Strengthening its Engineering Plastics Business, which aims to strengthen the company by announcing the transfer of half of its equity affiliate Mitsubishi Engineering Plastics Corporation (MEP) to Mitsubishi Gas Chemical Corporation (MGC), effective from 3 April 2023. At the same time through absorption spin-off acquisition of part of the Ministry of Environmental Protection business.
Before the spin-off, MEP held more than 10% of the global PC market share and ranked third among PC companies worldwide by sales. Following the restructuring, MCC will hold a 25 per cent stake in MEP, which will become a consolidated subsidiary of MGC. MEP will continue its activities as a PC manufacturing and sales company, while the other businesses will be acquired by MCC and MGC Group through absorption spin-offs, respectively.
MCC is pushing ahead with portfolio reforms to further enhance the added value of its poly (butylene terephthalate) business and specialty polycarbonate businesses including XANTAR™, which will be acquired from MEP through an absorption spin-off. At the same time, as part of its high performance polymers business, MCC aims to achieve sustainable growth in its specialty engineered plastics business around key polymerization and compounding technologies, as well as its other engineered plastics business represented by DURABIO™, MCC's biobased engineered plastics.
Source: New Observations on waste plastics
