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A Modular Approach to a Polypropylene Recycling Pilot Plant

Hanging Rock, OH

The client engaged Koch Modular for the design and manufacture of a small-scale pilot plant that demonstrates the validity of their patented recycling technology. To provide some background, while polypropylene is one of the most widely used materials in packaging for consumer goods, it is also one of the least recycled. The client’s process addresses this issue by converting waste plastic into ultra-pure recycled polypropylene with properties equal to virgin polymer, tackling global challenges like waste and pollution.

For this process, Koch Modular engineers provided a multi-module pilot plant that incorporates complex mass transfer design, including a series of specialized decantation, extraction, and adsorption processes, to ultimately generate ultra-pure recycled polypropylene. This system simulated commercial production and paved the way to a commercial scale plant.

A Modular Approach to a Polypropylene Recycling Pilot Plant
PP Recycling Pilot Plant
PP Recycling Pilot Plant
PP Recycling Pilot Plant
PP Recycling Pilot Plant

Challenge

The complexity of the client’s recycling technology offered unique challenges to Koch Modular engineers. Proper instrumentation selection, piping design that can handle viscous streams, as well as the incorporation of change orders in the project timeline were among these challenges. Given the large amount of equipment necessary for this complex process, Koch Modular engineers were particularly challenged in packaging everything into a working modular system and allowing for proper operator and maintenance access.

RESULTS

The system provided by Koch Modular was critical in demonstrating the validity of the client’s technology that converts waste plastic into ultra-pure recycled polypropylene.

A commercial-scale plant now under construction with Koch Modular. The development of this process at commercial scale will provide a much needed response to the global need for recycled polypropylene to reduce landfilling, export of plastic waste, and other environmentally damaging processes.