Finnish refiner Neste (Espoo; www.neste.com) said it has acquired the European rights to Alterra Energy’s (Akron, Ohio, USA; www.alterraenergy.com) liquefaction technology. Alterra Energy will continue to operate independently in the rest of the world.

The US chemical recycling technology company has developed a thermochemical solution for liquefaction of hard-to-recycle plastic. In Akron, the company is already running an industrial-scale facility with a capacity of almost 20,000 t/y input material that transforms end-of-life plastics into an intermediate product that can be further refined into raw material for plastics and other petrochemical products.

Related: VP of chemical recycling at Neste talks about the company’s vision for the future

Neste has processed liquefied waste plastic sourced from Alterra in a series of trial runs at its refinery in Finland. To scale up processing capacities for liquefied waste plastic at its Porvoo refinery in Finland, Neste is currently conducting a feasibility study to examine investing in proprietary pre-treatment and upgrading capabilities.

At the beginning of 2021, Neste had acquired a minority stake in Alterra Energy (see Plasteurope.com of 07.01.2021). Together with Belgian plastics compounder and distributor Ravago (Arendonk; www.ravago.com), Neste also plans to set up a joint venture to deploy the Alterra technology in Vlissingen, Netherlands (see Plasteurope.com of 29.07.2021); capacity data has yet to be provided. Neste‘s target is to process more than 1 mn t of waste plastic per annum from 2030 onwards.