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Market outlook for pyrolysis oil, as a recycling process that reduces crude oil demand for plastics and fuels
7/8/2024
5 min read
Feature
Pyrolysis oil growth will fundamentally reshape the waste management, chemical, fuel and plastic landscape, according to Mark Victory, Senior Editor of recycling, at ICIS.*
Chemical recycling is an umbrella term for a variety of methods to create new material from waste. Waste can be reverted back to monomer – building-block chemicals – or all the way back to crude oil. Unlike traditional mechanical recycling, chemical recycling alters the fundamental chemical properties of the material.
One chemical recycling process, which uses heat and pressure, is pyrolysis. The most common output of the process is pyrolysis oil, which is commonly used as an alternative to crude oil or naphtha, or to produce fuel or carbon black.
Today, pyrolysis accounts for more than 60% of European chemical recycling capacity. Pyrolysis oil produced from mixed plastic waste has a current nameplate (input waste processing) capacity of close to100,000 t/y in Europe, according to the ICIS Chemical Recycling Supply Tracker.