BASF Making €20 Million Investment in Chemical Recycling
BASF announced in a press release that it plans to invest €20 million into Quantafuel, a specialist for pyrolysis of mixed recycled plastic waste and purification of pyrolysis oil, headquartered in Oslo, Norway. The investment will occur through the subscription of new shares and through a grant of a convertible loan. The partnership aims to progress Quantafuel’s technology for chemical recycling.
“The investment underlines BASF’s commitment towards a sustainable use of resources and the development of a circular economy model for plastics,” said Hartwig Michels, President Petrochemicals, BASF, in the press release. “Moreover, the partnership is a first step to build up a broad supply base for Ccycled products. This enables us to support our customers in achieving their sustainability targets.”
The Quantafuel process integrates pyrolysis and purification to use output for feedstock in chemical production. Quantafuel also plans to license the jointly developed technology to other parties. The company plans to start up a pyrolysis and purification plant with a nameplate capacity of approximately 16,000 tons per year in Skive, Denmark in the fourth quarter of 2019. 
BASF Moving ChemCycling Project Forward
As part of the joint agreement, for a minimum of 4 years after the start-up of production of Quantafuel’s Skive plant, BASF will have a right of first refusal to all pyrolysis oil and purified hydrocarbons from this plant. BASF plans to use these raw materials in its ChemCyclingTM project to develop chemically recycled plastics. At BASF’s Ludwigshafen site, the recycled raw materials will be fed into the production Verbund, thereby partially replacing fossil resources. Once the Quantafuel plant in Denmark reaches full capacity, BASF aims to deliver first commercial supply volumes of CcycledTM products. These products are based on chemically recycled plastic waste. To increase commercial offers, the parties furthermore aim to build jointly owned plants to produce purified hydrocarbons via chemical recycling.
“We are of course honored that BASF has decided to invest both financial and human resources in our quest to become the leading technology company for recycling of a broad spectrum of mixed plastic waste based on our unique purification step,” said Kjetil Bøhn, CEO of Quantafuel in the BASF press release. “Our longstanding strategic partner Vitol S.A, the world’s largest independent energy trader, has agreed to open our existing cooperation to enable the collaboration between BASF and Quantafuel. We now have the foundation to establish production capacity on a scale that could have a meaningful impact on the global environmental challenges with waste plastic.”
BASF started its ChemCycling project in 2018 with the aim to process recycled raw materials obtained from plastic waste in its production Verbund. Together with customers from various industries, BASF has produced first prototypes based on chemically recycled plastic waste. These prototypes include food packaging for which particularly high quality and hygiene standards apply.
