Chemical Recycling Pilot Plant Targets High-Performance Elastomers
Elastomer Chemical Recycling
Covestro has opened a pilot plant at its Leverkusen site in Germany to advance the chemical recycling of high-performance polyurethane elastomers from laboratory development toward industrial application, describing it as one of the first installations of its kind worldwide for this class of material.
Pilot Plant Beyond Laboratory Scale
The double-digit million-euro facility focuses initially on selected end-of-life Vulkollan materials and is intended to demonstrate technical feasibility under conditions closer to future industrial operation. It will test different waste streams, optimize operating parameters and evaluate the consistency of recovered chemical building blocks, generating the data needed to support decisions on later industrial-scale deployment.
More Than 90 Percent Recovery
Instead of mechanically downgrading the elastomer into lower-value material, the process chemically breaks it down into purified building blocks that can potentially be used again in polymer production. Covestro reports it can recover more than 90 percent of selected material by mass while cutting the carbon footprint by up to two thirds compared with fossil-based virgin material — a figure that applies to the selected Vulkollan material and process evaluated, not elastomer recycling generally.
Demanding Applications And Closed Loop
Vulkollan is used in forklift wheels, railway buffer elements, automotive jounce bumpers and vibration-control components — products that are difficult to recycle at end of life because crosslinked elastomers cannot simply be remelted like thermoplastics. Reliable feedstock supply and consistent material quality will matter for commercialization, so beyond the process Covestro is working with customers, recyclers, waste collectors and logistics providers to build the collection and return systems a circular supply chain needs, Covestro describes the Leverkusen facility as a pre-industrialization step rather than a commercial recycling plant, aimed at validating the process and building the data and value-chain partnerships for larger-scale investment. The work sits within a broader circular-economy strategy to replace fossil resources, and the company plans to investigate similar routes for specialty cast elastomers and thermoplastic polyurethanes.
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