PureCycle Technologies announced an update on the status of activities at the company’s flagship purification facility located in Ironton, Ohio. The site successfully restarted following a November outage to address a number of key reliability issues.

Dustin Olson, CEO, PureCycle, said, "We got off to a nice start following the outage. In the first three days we pushed half the amount of feed through the system that we had in nearly five months prior to the outage. The screen changer we installed on the final product extruder showed that it will help with continuous pellet production.” Olson added, “Other operational improvements are evidenced by increased removal of impurities in the form of co-product one and co-product two through the purification process.”

Despite these achievements, a couple of mechanical problems arose last week that are unrelated to PureCycle’s core technology. The primary issues surrounded a leaking block valve and a mechanical seal failure. The Ironton facility was safely shut down following the seal failure with no further equipment damage. The needed maintenance to the plant is currently underway and should be completed in the near-term, before we return to continuous operations.

Due to these issues, PureCycle: Ohio LLC will utilize the 90-day cure period provided under an agreement with the bondholders, since the Company determined it will not meet the December 31, 2023 bondholder operational milestone under its Ironton bonds to produce 4.45 million pounds of pellets in a 30-day period.

Olson continued, “PureCycle’s dedicated team has been working around the clock at our Ironton facility to improve and optimize pellet production as we continue to bring this first-of-its-kind technology to market. We are committed to achieving reliable operations that ensure our products meet the highest safety and quality standards. We look forward to updating the market as we achieve future milestones.”