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IN FOCUS POLYESTER RECYCLING
feedstock. We want to provide a kind of rational decision tree - depending on the quality of the products and the most economical recycling method for these products. We don’t push our customers in any particular technological direction. If a customer needs food-grade material, we end up offering a recycled food contact grade polyester. And a recycled polyester made from carpets may be the feedstock especially for carpets’ manufacture. These are entirely different requirements. The factories will look different depending on the routes you choose.
Can polyesters from different sources be processed using the same technology?
Fig 3: CuRe Team at pilot plant
Source: CuRe Technology
JK: In our modular approach, we choose the purification method depending on the type of infeed and the quality we want to achieve in the end. That’s pretty unique. No, we don’t limit ourselves to just one purification method. We want to have six or seven different techniques. The ideal case is product recycling: beverage bottles should become beverage bottles again. The same applies to PET trays, carpets or clothing. That would be the most sustainable of all ways.
together with our shareholders and other parties.
JK: The hardest and most difficult part is actually getting out the contaminations, and colours are just one of the contaminants - there are barriers, oxygen scavengers, and all those other things. We are now screening every different kind of additives to find the best purification route to take. What we can share here is that we need an optimized recycling strategy for each of these contaminants.
Can your work also lead to a change of mood in society? Can it improve the acceptance of plastics? JK: That would be important. Currently, polyester recycling is still toomuch lumped together with the chemical recycling of polyolefins. The benefits of the reversible polymers are not well understood by the general public. We hope that we can do our part - and we also hope for support, for example from you as PETnology.
How do you get colours out of beverage bottles, for example?
How mature is the CuRe Technology?
JK: We are currently in the pilot phase, on a pilot scale. The pilot plant is like a mini factory with 500 t per year and can be in use 24/7. In Emmen in the North of the Netherlands, we also have an existing plant originally built to produce virgin polyester. It is a 25 kiloton plant. We have started engineering to convert it to the CuRe process, to reach 25 kilotons of CuRe rPET in 2023.
Josse Kunst
The hardest and most difficult part is actually getting out the contaminations, and colours are just one of the contaminants - there are barriers, oxygen scavengers, and all those other things.
DIALOGUE PARTNERS Josse Kunst Chief Commercial Officer at CuRe Technology COMPANY CuRe Technology www.curetechnology.com
What are your further expansion plans?
JK: After we have completed the 25-kiloton factory in the Netherlands, we will roll out the concept on a large scale
CONNECTING COMPETENCE | ONE:21
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