SK General Chemicals Establishes Korea-US Cooperation System for Plastic Waste Recycling

SK General Chemical and US Brightmark Sign MOU

[Asia Economy Reporter Hwang Yoon-joo] SK Geo Centric has partnered with Brightmark, a U.S.-based company specializing in pyrolysis oil production, to fundamentally solve the issue of waste plastics, which are a major cause of environmental problems. Brightmark aims to establish a virtuous cycle system for waste resources such as waste plastics by producing recycled fuels, natural gas, and more from waste resources.

On the 28th, SK Geo Centric announced that President Na Kyung-soo and Brightmark CEO Bob Powell signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) for the first domestic commercialization and facility investment of waste plastic pyrolysis oil.

Pyrolysis oil manufacturing technology involves decomposing waste plastics with heat to extract raw materials and recycle them into naphtha, a raw material for petrochemical products. This technology is considered a core technology for establishing a plastic circular economy system.

President Na said, "Pyrolysis oil technology is an essential eco-friendly technology to fundamentally solve the domestic waste plastic problem," adding, "Through cooperation with Brightmark, we will build an eco-friendly waste plastic circulation system to complete K-Green, a symbol of eco-friendly Korea, and further expand ESG management."

SK Geo Centric explained that the two companies plan to establish a long-term cooperative relationship to solve the waste plastic environmental problem and complete a review of business feasibility for domestic pyrolysis commercialization and facility investment by the first half of this year, leveraging their respective pyrolysis and post-processing technology know-how.

SK Geo Centric added that this collaboration between Korea’s leading waste plastic recycling company and a U.S. specialist with outstanding pyrolysis technology opens a new path for Korea-U.S. cooperation in addressing the global issue of waste plastic environmental problems.

Producing large volumes of pyrolysis oil from waste plastics has been difficult to commercialize due to high technical constraints and economic issues. Brightmark is overcoming these constraints and is constructing a large-scale continuous pyrolysis facility in Indiana, USA, aiming for completion in the first half of this year, capable of processing 100,000 tons of waste plastics annually. SK Geo Centric believes that by introducing large-scale pyrolysis technology in cooperation with Brightmark, it will create an opportunity to significantly increase the recycling rate of waste vinyl, which is considered a major cause of plastic collection crises due to the difficulty of recycling mixed materials.

In particular, SK Geo Centric is developing post-processing technology that can replace naphtha with pyrolysis oil as a raw material for plastic products by utilizing the accumulated fine chemical technology of SK Innovation’s Environmental Science and Technology Institute. Based on this, the company has announced plans to establish a win-win business model with the domestic pyrolysis industry. This technology is regarded as an alternative that can block the vicious cycle of waste plastics causing environmental problems. In October last year, SK Geo Centric succeeded in producing chemical product prototypes by extracting pyrolysis oil from waste plastics.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.