Toyo Styrene’s Japan plant produces first chemically recycled PS batch

Agilyx has announced its technology has successfully produced the first batch of on-specification recycled monomer at Toyo Styrene’s PS chemical recycling facility.

Japan-based chemical companies Denka and Toyo Styrene finished construction of the country’s first PS chemical recycling plant in March.

The plant started operations on March 19 and is located at Denka’s Chiba Factory, about 40 kilometres east of Tokyo. Chiba Factory has been in operation for 58 years and produces a range of petrochemical products, including styrene monomer, PS, styrene-based special resins, PVC tape, amongst others.

The new chemical recycling facility has capacity to process approximately 3,000 tonnes of PS waste per year. Construction began in February 2022 after Toyo Styrene entered into a technology licencing agreement with US-based Agilyx.

Agilyx built the pyrolysis modular system that powers the plant at its fabrication site in Louisiana, United States. Factory acceptance testing was also conducted in the US, before the modules were installed at Chiba Factory.

Last week, PS was successfully depolymerised and converted to on-specification product during commissioning, Agilyx said in a statement.

“The successful production of on-spec product during the commissioning process at Toyo’s facility is an exciting milestone,” said Russ Main, interim CEO for Agilyx. “This achievement demonstrates the efficacy of Agilyx’s technology and brings us one step closer to project completion on the first polystyrene chemical recycling facility in Japan.”

Agilyx said it will continue to partner with Toyo to optimise the facility over the next few months.

Together with US-based AmSty, Agilyx operated the world’s first commercial-scale chemical recycling facility for PS in Tigard, Oregon, between 2019 and 2024. The joint-venture, called Regenyx, shut down this April after having lost $4.5 million since 2021.

Source: sustainableplastics.com