GR3N a company that developed an innovative alkaline hydrolysis process to recycle all the packaging and textile PET waste into building blocks , announced the official opening and launch of an industrial demonstration plant operating with its microwave assisted technology (MADE). MADE was installed on GR3N’s research and manufacturing facility in Albese con Cassano, near Lake Como.

“This is another step ahead for GR3N, as it will allow us to increase our capacity and then test the material, that we can produce with our own polymerization line, for several applications,” said Dr. Maurizio Crippa, GR3N Founder and Chief Executive Officer. “When you develop a new process the upscaling is a pivotal step. Being able to receive feedstock and transform it into new PET chips at scale will help us demonstrate that obtaining pure monomers is the only way to obtain virgin-like PET”.

The demo plant will be able to shred the input material, depolymerize it, purify TPA and MEG using a solid process, and then producing new PET chips via a dedicated 500Kg polymerization reactor. An initial hydrolysis has been successfully realized, confirming the upscaling of the process; the optimization of the operating parameters is still underway.

"The demonstration plant includes a depolymerization reactor capable of processing 60 Kg of PET per hour, which is the equivalent of almost 2000 bottles, the yearly consumption of 2 people. This is a turning point for GR3N, as with this plant we will be able to fine-tune the process the already existing Process Design Package of the 40K Tons industrial plant," added Dr. Crippa.