Revalyu bolsters chemical recycling capacity in India

Revalyu Resources, which uses a glycolysis-based chemical recycling technique, has commissioned a second polyethylene terephthalate (PET) recycling plant at its complex in Nashik, India.

The Nashik site is capable of recycling more than 20 million discarded PET bottles per day, giving it the capacity to produce up to 175 tons per day of PET flakes and pellets.

“Our Nashik site underscores our strategic vision of reinforcing our leadership position in the PET recycling landscape globally. We will continue to explore collaborations globally to build scale and create market opportunities," Revalyu India CEO Makarand Kulkarni says.

Revalyu, which is partly owned by the Germany-based Heraeus Group, says the rPET being produced is used by customers to meet their sustainability targets in applications from sectors such as PET bottle, packaging materials, textiles, automobile accessories and a wide variety of other PET co-polymer based products.

A third plant under construction in Nashik will add another 130 tons per day of capacity in the second half of next year. The firm is investing about $100 million in total in Nashik, which is about 90 miles northeast of Mumbai.

By the end of next year, Revalyu anticipates the Nashik site will have the capacity to recycle about 35 million PET bottles per day, with a daily output capacity of up to 310 tons.

“This is a revolutionary moment for the PET plastic recycling industry,” says Vivek Tandon, Ph.D., founder of Revalyu Resources and the Revaluy Group. “Finally, the world has a commercially proven, scalable, profitable and environmentally sustainable recycling technology that can truly reverse engineer used PET plastic into virgin grade-quality PET polymer."  

The company says its patented glycolysis-based recycling technologies (breaking down glucose) makes its manufacturing operations “highly optimized, scalable, profitable and easily replicable." The recycled PET is produced using 75 percent less water and 91 percent less energy than conventional PET made from oil," according to Revalyu.

“Our 100 percent-postconsumer-recycled polymer can seamlessly replace conventional PET in any polyester or PET application,” says Jan van Kisfeld, Revalyu Group managing director. “Our new plant demonstrates two critical achievements: first, that this chemical recycling process is commercially viable on a global scale, and second, that it operates with an impressively low environmental footprint.”

Revalyu Resources plans to set up a 260 ton-per-day PET recycling facility in the United States by 2027 and has further plans to expand globally with partnerships to increase its production to more than 1,100 tons per day by 2030.