Turning waste plastic back into hydrocarbon feedstocks would take nature 200 million years. Mura’s ground-breaking HydroPRS™ advanced plastic recycling process does it in just 30 minutes.
The process begins by preparing the plastic. The feedstock is shredded and contaminants such as glass, grit, metals, and stones are removed.
The shredded plastic mix is then melted and pressurised.
The supercritical steam is mixed with the plastic.
The mix is further heated.
In the reactor, the plastics are broken down into liquid hydrocarbons and gas. This conversion takes as little as 30 minutes.
Following conversion, pressure is released. Energy recovered in this process is used to drive product separation.
Products are separated into individual fractions for storage and onward sale to customers. Process gas is recovered and used in the process to generate supercritical steam. This saves energy and reduces the reliance on fossil fuels such as natural gas.
Mura and Engineering Partner KBR are currently developing upgrading integration into the existing HydroPRS™ design.
The products are stored before shipping to petrochemical customers, for use in the manufacture of new plastics and other materials.
Mura’s Target feedstock includes the flexible, multi-layered materials that cannot be processed via traditional mechanical means, such as flexible films and multi-material rigids. These materials would instead be sent to incineration or landfill.
HydroPRS™ instead offers a viable recycling route, as part of a circular economy for plastic.
Target feedstocks for HydroPRS™ are polyolefins, including LDPE, HDPE and PP, alongside other plastic types 1 – 7 (PET, PS, ABS and polyamides).
Feedstocks are sourced from end-of-life, post-consumer plastics (films and rigids), MRF and agricultural residual material – materials which cannot be mechanically recycled.
HydroPRS™ processes post-consumer, contaminated, mixed plastic streams without segregation, complementing existing mechanical recycling processes and providing a solution to avoid costly packaging redesigns.
HydroPRS™ outputs a range of valuable, liquid hydrocarbon products – each can be tailored to meet market requirements and conditions. These products will be sold on long-term contracts.
