Page 43 - Plastics News April 2020

COVID-19 leads to furloughs in Ohio, Michigan UK's First Waste Plastics to Hydrogen Facility to
for Americhem be built at Protos Site

eel Environmental and Waste2Tricity have received
Pplanning consent for UK's First Waste Plastics to
Hydrogen Facility at a site near Ellesmere Port. Last
year, Peel Environmental signed a collaboration
agreement with Waste2Tricity and Powerhouse Energy
to build a plastics-to-hydrogen facility at its Protos site
near Ellesmere Port, Cheshire. The planning consent for
the £7m (US$8.1m) development has now been
approved by Cheshire West & Chester Council. The
facility will convert 35 t/d of unrecyclable plastics into
hydrogen, which could be used as a fuel for vehicles.
The facility will also generate electricity which it will
provide to commercial users via a micro-grid at Protos.
The plant will be the first in the UK to use Powerhouse
he COVID-19 outbreak has led materials firm
TAmerichem Inc. to put temporary furloughs in Energy's distributed modular generation (DMG)
place for 73 workers at plants in Ohio and Michigan. technology, which involves the plastics being shredded
Fifty-six of the furloughs took place at the firm's two and then gasified to produce syngas. The DMG process
plants in Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio. The remaining 17 were works by heating plastic waste (or old tyres) to
at a plant in Grand Rapids, Michigan. The layoffs were temperatures of more than 850°C, which not only melts
announced between April 1 and April 6, officials with
the plastic, but turns the molten plastic into syngas — a
Cuyahoga Falls-based Americhem said in letters to
officials in both states. The cuts are expected to be mixture of methane, carbon monoxide and hydrogen.
temporary, they added, saying that Americhem "is Myles Kitcher, Managing Director at Peel
hopeful that employees will be recalled after the Environmental, said: “The creation of this UK-first
restrictions imposed due to the COVID-19 pandemic facility makes great strides to solve two important
have been lifted." The company spokesperson said issues; the huge amount of waste plastic produced, and
that all three plants remain operational in spite of the the over-reliance on fossil fuels for energy. The
layoffs. The spokesperson added that employees who
were laid off "are still receiving benefits, and we hope
to recall them to work in the near future." Americhem
officials previously said that the firm is giving priority
to all COVID-19 related orders. Americhem is
continuing to make a wide range of products with
antimicrobial properties, including additives sold
under the nShield brand name. Americhem makes color
and additive compounds and concentrates for a wide
variety of industries. In addition to Ohio and Michigan,
Americhem operates U.S. plants in Pennsylvania, New
Jersey, Georgia and North Carolina; as well as
international plants in England, India and China. Under
the aegis of the Ohio Manufacturing Alliance to Fight
COVID-19, 19 Ohio companies came together and
pivoted to design a prototype, assemble a local supply technology has been proven at Thornton Science Park
chain and roll out production of a new face shield for and will now be commercialised at Protos, before being
frontline health care workers — all in less than two rolled out across the UK.” Construction is expected to
weeks. As a result, one million face shields will be begin later this year and the facility is due to be
produced over the next month.
operational in 2021.

APRIL 2020 40 Plastics News