What We Do
Our Vision
Eliminate the issue of plastics waste on a global basis.
Our Mission
Offer plastic producers and waste recyclers a profitable way to treat plastic waste, enabling its chemical recycling and closing its life cycle.
Nowadays, Polyethylene Terephthalate (PET)-based waste streams are mainly treated by means of mechanical processes, aimed at recovering plastic solid waste (PSW) for re-use; because of the degradation and heterogeneity of PSW, only single-polymer plastics can be processed, thus excluding all the more complex and contaminated waste. Quality is the main issue when dealing with mechanically recycled products, which, in the end, could just be burned or landfilled disposed.
At the end of the PET life cycle, DEMETO proposes its innovative technology: the first feasible and sustainable (economically, environmentally and socially) industrial application of chemical treatment for reuse of PET/Polyester waste streams. Thanks to a process intensifying approach based on innovative usage of microwave radiations, DEMETO’s recycling technology will provide an indefinite life to PET, allowing to come back to its composing elements (Ethylene Glycol, EG, and Terephtalic Acid, PTA) without degrading the materials and, consequently, paving the way for a disruptive, large-scale circular economy for plastic products.
The Prospect of DEMETO
With the prospect of establishing a comprehensive feedback loop within the PET value chain, directly “from grave to cradle” (inverting on purpose the well-established wording of LCA), DEMETO offers a huge business opportunity to interested companies.
The technology, industrialised by the project, enables the creation of a new source of raw materials for the plastics market that has the guarantee of strong advantage over the currently existing main alternatives: direct monomers production from fossil fuel and mechanical elaboration of waste to offer R-PET.
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The core mission of the project is therefore to enable chemical de-polymerization of PET at industrial scale thanks to its microwave-based process intensification, closing its life-cycle through a circular economy value chain, reducing plastics market dependency from natural resources and improving drastically the environmental footprint of PET production by revolutionizing the paradigm of its recycling.
The Objectives of DEMETO
TECHNICAL OBJECTIVE:
Build a full and industrial-grade pilot plant of the de-polymerization process, having a gr3n Reactive Unite at its core, while optimising the purification steps.
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STRATEGIC OBJECTIVE:
Exploit immediately the mature market of the packaging waste, while preparing the technology transfer to the huge and unexplored polyester/textile value chain.
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ENVIRONMENTAL OBJECTIVE:
Enable a fully circular economic approach to reduce the environmental footprint of PET production and usage by more than 50% .