ExxonMobil (Baytown, Texas / USA; www.exxonmobil.com) has completed an initial plant trial test of a proprietary advanced recycling process that converts difficult-to-recycle plastics waste into feedstock to produce virgin-quality polymers. Results from the trial, held at the company’s Baytown, Texas facility, will be used to scale-up advanced recycling capabilities at other global facilities, according to Karen McKee, president of ExxonMobil Chemical.

Pending successful completion of the next trial phase, the company intends to market commercial volumes of the material created with the advanced recycling process as certified circular polymers later this year. ExxonMobil has already obtained certifications through the “ISCC Plus” process, awarded by the 140-member sustainability association ISCC (Cologne / Germany; www.iscc-system.org). ISCC Plus is widely recognised by the industry as an effective international certification system for products that result from advanced recycling of plastics waste.

ExxonMobil also collaborated with chemical recycler Agilyx (Tigard, Oregon / USA; www.agilyx.com) to launch the latter’s subsidiary Cyclyx International (see Plasteurope.com of 22.07.2020), which was officially established on 1 January 2021. The aim of the joint venture is to develop solutions for aggregating and pre-processing large volumes of plastics waste that can be converted into feedstocks for valuable products. Cyclyx will also help supply ExxonMobil’s advanced recycling projects and other customers.