Gasification Chemical Recycling System (Waste Plastic - Chemical Feedstock) - Late 1990s to Early 2000s

Gasification Chemical Recycling System (Waste Plastic - Chemical Feedstock) - Late 1990s to Early 2000s
The gasification chemical recycling system introduced by Showa Denko K.K. (SDK) was positioned as a technology that simultaneously responded to the dual challenges faced by the Japanese chemical industry in the late 1990s and early 2000s: the waste plastic problem and the need to secure stable supplies of chemical raw materials. The essence of this technology was a shift in thinking from waste disposal as the main objective to the integration of waste plastics into the raw material cycle of the chemical industry.

At the time, Japan's Containers and Packaging Recycling Law institutionalized the recycling of waste plastics, but material recycling inevitably led to quality deterioration and application restrictions, and it did not fully break away from its dependence on incineration. On the other hand, the chemical industry is highly dependent on fossil resources such as naphtha, and the fluctuation of resource prices and future constraints were beginning to be recognized as real business risks. Against this backdrop, there was a need for technology to redefine waste plastics as a carbon resource.

Gasification chemical recycling is a system in which waste plastics are gasified at high temperatures to generate synthesis gas consisting mainly of carbon monoxide and hydrogen, which is used as a basic chemical raw material such as ammonia. It was characterized by the fact that it could process any type of material and any contamination, and did not presuppose separation, and waste plastics were treated as part of the raw material pool for the chemical industry, rather than as objects to be processed.

In the early 2000s, this technology attracted attention as a symbolic case study of a recycling-oriented society, and was recognized as an attempt to connect waste policy with industrial policy, and environmental response with resource strategy. The gasification chemical recycling system was a solution unique to the chemical industry at that time, which read the waste plastic problem from the treatment of quantity to the restructuring of carbon resources.