Our solutions

Polyethylene terephthalate (PET) in the form of bottles is a well recycled plastic, the majority of the PET produced annually however currently ends up in landfills or incineration facilities, since established processes cannot separate composites or remove additives from the polymer. New processes are available to recycle those materials by breaking the polymers to its building blocks ethylene glycol (MEG), terephthalic acid (TPA), dimethyl terephthalate (DMT) or bis(hydroxyethyl)terephthalat (BHET). The methanolysis and glycolysis of PET have reached technical maturity, producing DMT, MEG, and BHET. After the purification of recovered monomers, these can be used in existing PET polymerization processes to produce new PET. 

Sulzer’s purification technologies, including distillation and crystallization processes, allow the purification of recovered monomers as well as the recovery of solvents used in the processes like MEG, water or alcohols. Our solutions and processes enable the separation of by-products as well as of impurities achieving final high monomer-purities, suitable for the production of PET for new bottles or other food-grade applications. 

Next to in-house simulation capabilities, all technologies can be scaled in our test-centers, which allows us to give process guarantees.