Versalis, Eni's chemical company, today started the construction of the Hoop® demo plant, the proprietary technology for the chemical recycling of mixed plastic waste, in the Mantua plant. Hoop® was born from a joint project with the Italian engineering company SRS (Research and Development Services) with the aim of developing an innovative technology, complementary to mechanical recycling, capable of transforming mixed plastic waste into raw material to produce new virgin polymers.
This virtuous process will also be possible thanks to the collaboration started in 2020 with Corepla (National Consortium for the Collection, Recycling and Recovery of Plastic Packaging) to valorise post-consumer plastics coming from national separate collection and destined for recycling.
Furthermore, Hoop® technology, which in English means circle and represents circularity, has been integrated with the purification technologies of plastic pyrolysis products from Technip Energies (T.EN), a leading company in engineering and technology for energy transition, constituting a technological platform for advanced chemical recycling.
The Hoop® technology demonstration plant in Mantua will have the capacity to manage 6 thousand tons of secondary raw material, and is expected to be launched at the end of 2024. Hoop® is the only Italian technology that was awarded, out of 239 projects presented and of 41 total winners, the 2023 call for the "EU Innovation Fund", a fund allocated by the European Commission of a total of 3,6 billion euros, dedicated to innovative low carbon emission technologies.
«The Hoop® project represents an important step in Versalis' strategy for the development of chemical recycling, complementary to mechanical recycling, guaranteeing the full circularity of all plastics. The project will also make a strong contribution to the valorisation of plastic waste by transforming it into a new raw material, and influencing the achievement, also at a national level, of the recycling objectives defined by the European Commission" declared Adriano Alfani, CEO of Versalis.