Lucite International (LI) and Agilyx Corporation, a pioneer in the advanced recycling of post-use plastics, announced today plans to pursue a commercial-scale trial for the recycling of PMMA, commonly known as acrylic, at Agilyx’s Tigard, Oregon facility.

 

Following the success of an initial smaller-scale trial using Agilyx’s molecular recycling technology, LI, with the support of parent company, Mitsubishi Chemical Corporation (MCC), will further advance its collaboration with Agilyx to deliver fully circular PMMA.

 

Lucite International (LI) aims for commercial realisation of recycled PMMA production by 2023. In the interim, LI is working with all key stakeholders - including MMA (the building block of all acrylic-based products) customers, PMMA customers, manufacturers, distributors, fabricators and recyclers - to develop a robust value chain for all.

 

“The results of the trial were so encouraging that we asked Agilyx to run a full-scale plant trial to further prove and optimise their technology,” said David Smith, Circular Economy Programme Lead for LI. “The MMA yield and purity figures of the first trial surpassed our expectations, so we are excited to see how well PMMA can be recycled at full production levels. Most encouragingly, when we tested a wide variety of PMMA feedstocks during the initial trial; we purposely included a number of contaminants and the Agilyx technology handled them with no issues. This means that we are on track to deliver a fully operational recycling plant in Europe for PMMA by 2023.”

 

“PMMA is an ideal material for advanced recycling,” said Tim Stedman, CEO of Agilyx. “As a specialist in the advanced recycling of mixed waste plastics, our team of chemical engineers and manufacturing specialists have a wealth of knowledge in the chemical properties and makeup of a multitude of plastic materials. With our already proven track record in the recycling of Polystyrene, as well as our history of recycling mixed waste plastics to synthetic crude and naphtha, we have the knowledge and expertise to turn PMMA back into its original monomer, MMA, creating a truly circular material.”