LYON, France—Elkem's chemical silicone waste upcycling program was a success, and now company officials of the Oslo, Norway-based chemical producer is taking the project in its booming silicone sector to the next level.
Funded by the France 2030 national innovation and industry investment program and the European Union's NextGenerationEU fund, the program has graduated from the laboratory phase and now will operate as a pilot unit out of Elkem's Saint-Fons production site in Lyon, the company said in a news release. The pilot unit will provide scale-up information for safe and energy-efficient recycling of silicones at the industrial scale, and supply Elkem's target customers with representative quantities of silicone with recycled content.
Josephine Munsch, sustainability project leader at Elkem, said that the project is key to "closing the loop" of silicone circularity.
"As a manufacturer of silicones since 1948 and leading global supplier of silicones, we are committed to creating a circular economy for our products, giving them a second life," Munsch said. "Chemical recycling of silicones is a key technological enabler to close the loop. Through our innovative technology, we can provide a solution for silicone waste and offer low carbon solutions from recycling with the same quality as those made from virgin material to the market."
The project provides several unique benefits through its patented depolymerization technologies, Elkem officials said. Those benefits include such things as low process temperatures, which enable lower carbon emissions, high conversion rates and chemical selectivity that avoids the generation of undesirable by-products and residues.
It also has led to the innovation of new recycling and upcycling processes for silicone, which can now be added to the Saint-Fons facility overall.
"Recycling silicones reduces their carbon footprint and contributes to securing the provision of the critical raw material, demand for which is rising due to the green transition and digitalization," the company said.
