BASF partners with New Energy in tyre-derived oil project

BASF SE has signed an uptake supply agreement with New Energy, which specializes waste tyre pyrolysis and is headquartered in Budapest, Hungary. According to the agreement, New Energy will supply BASF with up to 4,000 metric tonnes of pyrolysis oil per year derived from waste tyres. In a pilot phase, the first volumes of the pyrolysis oil have already been used in BASF’s integrated chemical production site in Ludwigshafen, Germany.

The agreement is part of BASF’s ChemCycling project which was started in 2018 and focusses on chemically reprocessing post-consumer plastic waste on an industrial scale. The first commercial products entered the market in 2020.

The focus of the project remains the use of mixed plastic waste, which would otherwise end up in landfill or incineration. In addition, BASF also sees an opportunity to increase recycling rates for end-of-life tyres: “So far, there was no technology that allowed the recycling of pyrolysis oil from tyres into high value applications. By further broadening our raw material base to waste tyres, we can create a new circular value stream. Moreover, we establish a second recycled feedstock in our ChemCycling project with which we can manufacture high-performance products for our customers’ demanding applications”, said Dr. Christian Lach, Project Leader ChemCycling at BASF. Waste tyres fall within the definition of post-consumer plastic waste according to DIN EN ISO 14021:2016-07.

In addition, BASF and New Energy have are embarking on a feasibility study that targets the adaption of New Energy’s proprietary pyrolysis technology to the conversion of other plastic waste streams.

“The collaboration with New Energy underlines BASF’s ambition to use recycled raw materials in the chemical industry and lead the transition to a circular economy for plastics,” said Lach. “Partnerships with agile, innovative companies are key to achieving these ambitions. We are happy that we have found such a partner in New Energy, in addition to our partnership with Quantafuel that will soon supply us with pyrolysis oil derived from mixed plastic waste from their commercial scale plant in Skive, Denmark.”

Viktor Varadi (right), CEO of New Energy, is showing Dr. Christian Lach (2nd from right), Project Lead ChemCycling at BASF, the waste tires which New Energy is turning into pyrolysis oil in their plant in Budapest, Hungary. (Photo: BASF)

Viktor Varadi, CEO of New Energy, added: “We are proud that our technology provides value to BASF, and through this collaboration to their customers. We spent almost a decade to develop and optimize our technology and are now successfully operating an industrial-scale plant which turns waste tires into secondary raw materials. This puts us at the forefront when it comes to establishing a circular economy for tires. Our objective is to achieve quantifiable environmental benefit. The reduced need for primary fossil resources clearly serves this objective as well as the reduced carbon footprint of the newly manufactured products.”

BASF feeds the pyrolysis oil supplied by New Energy into its integrated Verbund site in Ludwigshafen, thereby replacing fossil resources. According to the company, the share of recycled raw material is allocated to certain products manufactured in the Verbund by using a third-party audited mass balance approach. The products which carry the name suffix “Ccycled” have the exact same properties as those manufactured from fossil feedstock. Customers can therefore further process them in the same way as conventionally manufactured products and use them in applications with high demands regarding quality and performance, such as automotive parts.