Page 26 - Plastics News April 2023

Exxon Mobil weighing options for more chemical recycling capacity

known is pyrolysis, which uses heat funneling material to the proposed
and pressure in the absence of oxy- Baton Rouge site.
gen to break down plastics into oil, "We think we can attract additional
gas and char. That's the process being businesses here to Louisiana. Ad-
used by ExxonMobil in Baytown.
vanced recycling is exciting because
"We are assessing installing facilities you know what — only 9 percent of
at the existing Baton Rouge complex the plastics produced today are ac-
to allow processing of plastics not tually recycled. Why is that? It's kind
xxonMobil Corp.'s Baton Rouge, currently able to be mechanically re- of difficult. There's all these numbers
ELa., refinery is one of several cycled. The proposed advanced re- and things on them. It's hard to know
company sites being considered for cycling facility in Baton Rouge would what gets recycled where," he said.
a chemical recycling facility similar to be similar to ExxonMobil's large-scale "Advanced recycling helps simplify
one the company already is operating facility in Baytown, Texas," Julie King, that. Basically, we chemically break
in Texas. a company spokeswoman, said in a down hard-to-recycle plastics that
March 29 email.
David Oldreive, refinery manager in currently can't be mechanically re-
Baton Rouge for the oil giant, told an "The new equipment would include cycled today. We send them back
online roundtable his company cur- facilities to receive and store plas- through our process to make basically
rently is weighing incentives for the tics, a new control system to monitor virgin new plastic with the same quali-
proposal with a decision expected in quality of plastic feed, and processing ties that the original plastic had," the
the months ahead. equipment to break down used plas- plant manager said.
tics to raw materials for reprocessing
"We would hope to get a final invest- "Things like bubble wrap, chip bags,
ment decision late this year [or] early into new products, including light- dry cleaner bags, industrial shrink
next year on this project," he said dur- weight, durable plastics," she said. wrap, motor oil [containers]. All kinds
ing a webcast from the Greater Baton ExxonMobil noted other company fa- of stuff cannot be recycled today, and
Rouge Business Report. cilities are also under consideration. with advanced recycling we believe

ExxonMobil opened a chemical re- "We are assessing advanced recycling we can do that," Oldreive said.
cycling facility at the company's Bay- facilities at our Baton Rouge and Beau- While ExxonMobil uses pyrolysis,
town, Texas, refinery late last year mont (Texas) complexes, and at other King previously explained the compa-
with a capacity to handle more than sites around the world, including the ny's approach is different from stand-
80 million pounds of difficult-to-recy- Netherlands, Singapore and Canada, alone pyrolysis units other companies
cle plastics each year. with the expectation to have about have developed. "Our technology co-
1 billion pounds of annual advanced processes the shredded plastic waste
That opening, and consideration of
locations elsewhere, comes as the recycling capacity by year-end 2026," directly in our facilities with other
company has made a commitment to King said in an email. hydrocarbon streams, allowing us to
create 500,000 tonnes of chemical re- As for Baton Rouge, Oldreive said recover more of the molecules pro-
cycling capacity by the end of 2026. the project could attract additional duced during the process than a typi-
jobs beyond those at ExxonMobil. He cal stand-alone pyrolysis unit."
There is a suite of chemical recy-
cling technologies but the most well- pointed to the potential of an artificial
turf recycler locating in the area and

26 PLASTICS NEWS April 2023