ExxonMobil’s commercial-scale chemical recycling facility begins production

HOUSTON (ICIS)– ExxonMobil has started production at their commercial scale chemical recycling facility in Baytown, Texas, the company said on Wednesday.

The facility, which was announced in the fall of 2021, was initially scheduled with an input processing capacity of 30,000 tonnes/year of mixed plastic waste. According to this latest release, the facility will be able to process over 36,000 tonnes/year of feedstock.  Representatives of the company commented that the facility should reach its full capacity in early 2023.

This feedstock, comprised of both pre- and post-consumer waste such as artificial turf and difficult to recycled flexible plastics, is sorted and shredded offsite, then fed into an onsite a conversion unit where input material is mixed with other hydrocarbon liquids.

ExxonMobil utilises “Exxtend”, a proprietary processing technology focused on pyrolysis, by which plastic is heated under a limited oxygen environment to produce pyrolysis oil, or naphtha-like products to be used in the production of petrochemical products.

Year to date, ExxonMobil has chemically recycled over 6,800 tonnes of waste through their pilot unit, also located in Baytown, Texas.

ExxonMobil recently shared plans for several additional facilities, including at their existing petrochemical plants in Baton Rouge, Louisiana; Beaumont, Texas; Joliet, Illinois; Sarnia, Ontario; Rotterdam, Netherlands, Belgium and one project in Singapore scheduled for the 2025-2026 timeframe.

Furthermore, ExxonMobil had previously announced several collaborative joint ventures or MoU’s such as projects with PETRONAS Chemicals Group Berhad in Malaysia as well as one with Plastic Energy to build a recycling plant in Notre Dame de Gravenchon, France, expected to process 25,000 tonnes/year of plastic waste. Start-up is forecast for 2023.

ExxonMobil noted that while they are still trialing the optimal facility size, they believe the current processing capacity at the Baytown location is ideal for duplication to gain scale, and for replication at other facilities.

The company estimated that new facilities could be constructed within 18 months, enabling the rapid deployment of their technology.

Furthermore, Exxon believes their strategic position lies within their integration capabilities, as the processed plastic waste is able to flow directly into existing petrochemical processing operations.

By the end of 2026, Exxon hopes to have over 450,000 tonnes/year of input capacity across all of their facilities.

Overall, the US recycled plastics industry may have  5 million tonnes/year of chemical recycling input capacity by 2025, based on corporate announcements alone, but these plans still must overcome several uncertainties.

One of the key barriers to scaling chemical recycling technology continues to be feedstock availability, which Exxon is tackling through various industry partnerships.

“We are collaborating with government, industry and communities to scale up the collection and sorting of plastic waste that will improve recycling rates and help our customers around the world meet their sustainability goals,” said Karen McKee, president of ExxonMobil Product Solutions Company.

Through their joint venture with Agilyx, Cyclyx International LLC, was formed to develop solutions for aggregating and pre-processing large volumes of plastic waste that can be converted into feedstocks for producing plastics or other products.

Announced just two months ago, Cyclyx, ExxonMobil and LyondellBasell are proceeding with a joint agreement to build a plastic waste sorting facility in the greater Houston area.

The facility, called the Cyclyx Circularity Center, is scheduled to be operational by 2024 with an output capacity of 150,000 tonnes/year of sorted plastic waste.

One identified source of waste material is from curbside recycling, specifically streams from FCC Environmental’s Houston material recovery facility (MRF).

Uniquely, the circularity center will provide sorted plastic feedstock for both mechanical and chemical recycling facilities.

This builds off of the MoU signed by all parties this past February, forming the Houston Recycling Collaboration. As hinted by the release, this may be the first of multiple facilities.

Furthermore, ExxonMobil also noted that they are considering all options when it comes to assessing other pathways to generating recycled plastic resin, such as processing third party pyrolysis oil within their existing operations.

In terms of supply offtake, ExxonMobil has made public several partnerships with packaging converters, including Amcor, Berry Global and Sealed Air.

At present, demand for recycled resin, especially chemically recycled resin which has virgin like properties, far outstrips current supply.

Thumbnail shows chemical-recycling plant. Image by ExxonMobil.