The inconvenience of separating plastics for recycling may soon be a thing of the past. A team of Korean researchers has developed the world’s first technology that can chemically recycle mixed waste plastics into raw materials in a highly selective manner without the need for strict sorting or label removal.
The Korea Institute of Machinery and Materials (KIMM), under the National Research Council of Science & Technology (NST), announced that its Center for Plasma Process for Organic Material Recycling, carried out in collaboration with the Korea Research Institute of Chemical Technology (KRICT), Korea Institute of Industrial Technology (KITECH), Korea Institute of Science and Technology (KIST), and several universities, has successfully developed an innovative plasma conversion process.
This process transforms a wide variety of waste plastics directly into raw chemical feedstocks, setting a new milestone for Korea’s chemical industry and environmental policy.