In 2019, 368 mtn of plastic waste was generated globally, with the EU alone generating more than 29.1 mtn of post-consumer plastic waste per annum . Of this, around 32.5% is recycled, 42.6% is managed by energy recovery processes, mostly incineration, and the remainder is landfilled. Incinerating plastics can cause several environmental issues, such as dioxins and other toxins formation causing adverse health issues. Additionally, plastics can end up in the oceans negatively affecting the marine ecosystems, if not disposed of properly. Thermochemical conversion technologies, such as gasification and pyrolysis, have gained significant attention for the management/energy recovery of/from plastic waste since conventional mechanical recycling techniques cannot recycle all types of plastic waste due to their contamination with food, dirt, paper labels, and polymer mixtures that makes them an attractive alternative.

SURPLAS will simultaneously deliver a step change and innovative improvement in the production of low carbon fuels and plastic waste management, an integrated solution from feedstock to end use.

Gasification of waste plastics is a key enabling route for low carbon H₂/syngas generation. A range of plastic waste will be explored, while use of the produced syngas will be examined as feedstock in Fischer Tropsch (FT) reactors toward gasoline and diesel mixtures (low carbon liquid fuels) going beyond current state of the art. In both cases, optimum processing conditions and catalysts will be defined to maximise performance. Lab-scale gasifiers and the 1 kg/h fully automated gasification unit in CPERI will be used to determine the optimum process parameters for gasification. In addition, the upgrading of syngas mixtures produced from plastic waste, will be explored in a pressurized lab-scale FT catalytic reactor to generate liquid fuels. The energy and heat integration of the overall process design and its viability for real scale applications will also be investigated.