Covestro launches mechanical recycling polycarbonate compounding line in China

These market dynamics underscore the significance of Covestro’s recent developments in providing PCR polycarbonates. Earlier this year, the company unveiled a polycarbonate boasting 90% recycled content. This grade not only attains outstanding whiteness and highly saturated colours but also touts a sustainable feature – a 70% reduction in carbon footprint compared to its fossil-based virgin plastic counterpart. Achieving this remarkable accomplishment requires a meticulous selection of high-quality recycled materials and precise optimisation of material composition during the compounding process.

Furthermore, Covestro is actively engaged in pioneering the chemical recycling of polycarbonates. Having successfully developed an innovative process within the laboratory, the company is now embarking on the technical implementation of this breakthrough at a pilot scale.

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Expansion of polycarbonate production capacity in Asia Pacific

After debottlenecking multiple production lines at the Map Ta Phut site in Thailand, Covestro is nearing the final stages of a programme to enhance polycarbonate production capacity and capabilities across the Asia Pacific region. This programme also includes the addition of new production lines at sites in Shanghai and Guangzhou, China, as well as Greater Noida, India, in recent times. The combined additional capacity now exceeds 100,000t/yr. These strategic projects, aimed at optimising the regional production network, have been supported by using digital tools, which also reduced investment costs.

“In this way, we aim not only to meet the growing demand for polycarbonate in Asia, but also to offer our customers there an improved product quality,” says Dr. Nicolas Stoeckel, Head of Operations in the Business Entity Engineering Plastics. “Depending on demand, the upgrades can be used for compounding recycled or conventionally produced polycarbonate.” Therefore, both projects are also about improving Covestro´s ability to produce more plastics with higher recycled content.

Main image caption: _{At a customer event, Sucheta Govil, Covestro’s Chief Commerical Officer (3rd from left), Lily Wang,
head of the Engineering Plastics business unit (4th from left), and Dr. Nicolas Stoeckel, head of
operations at Engineering Plastics (far right), celebrate the startup of the new MCR plant. © Covestro}