en.Wedoany.com Reported - Dutch research institute TNO has introduced a new route for plastic recycling that sits between mechanical and chemical recycling. Its selective dissolution platform, named Möbius, has now reached the stage of being tested at customer sites, moving beyond the laboratory environment. It is designed to process contaminated, colored, or additive-laden plastic streams that are difficult to recycle economically through mechanical means.
The core principle of the Möbius platform involves using low-boiling-point organic solvents to selectively dissolve target polymers, removing contaminants and additives before recovering polymers with intact structures. This process avoids the high energy consumption and capital investment of chemical depolymerization while producing recyclates close to virgin quality. TNO believes that mechanical recycling remains the preferred option when feedstocks are clean and well-sorted, and that Möbius is specifically developed for materials beyond its processing limits, including mixed plastics, engineering polymers, and high-additive waste.
In terms of technical validation, TNO has achieved Technology Readiness Level 5 (TRL 5) through its Leto pilot plant. This facility has produced approximately 5 kilograms of recycled SAN from end-of-life vehicle waste. TNO plans to deploy the plant at industrial customer sites next, advancing toward Technology Readiness Level 6 (TRL 6). TNO has announced industrial collaborations including with Braskem in polyolefins, ELIX Polymers in ABS, Royal Dahlman in filtration, and participation in the Horizon Europe project ABSolEU (in partnership with Lego, Volvo, and BIC).
The commercial prospects of Möbius are closely tied to policies and regulations. The EU's End-of-Life Vehicles Regulation has reached a provisional agreement, requiring new vehicle models to use at least 15% recycled plastics within six years of the regulation's entry into force, rising to 25% within ten years, with at least 20% of that coming from closed-loop recycling of end-of-life vehicles. This provision directly creates a market for Möbius to recover engineering polymers from automotive waste. The construction industry, as one of the largest destinations for recycled plastics in Europe, consuming approximately 10 million tons annually, also faces pressure to increase recycled content.
Möbius's patent portfolio reveals its platform nature. Related patents cover the separation of polyolefins using low-boiling-point non-polar solvents (such as MTBE and cyclopentane), preparing polymers into liquid streams suitable for downstream pyrolysis or cracking through a solvent-switching concept, and separating polycarbonate from mixed PC/ABS and PC/HIPS using ketone solvents. TNO also emphasizes that the platform has the capability to recover valuable additives such as pigments, plasticizers, and flame retardants, enabling the recovery of specific critical raw materials from electronic and vehicle waste.
TNO acknowledges that while laboratory and pilot results are encouraging, completing the full commercial pathway still requires a demonstration plant processing approximately 100 kilograms per day for about two years to generate complete data on mass balance, energy balance, life cycle assessment, and techno-economic analysis. The organization states that future challenges increasingly lie in industrial traction rather than laboratory capability, and that commercial deployment depends on the synchronized coordination of feedstock acquisition, manufacturing partners, specification requirements, investment, and regulations.
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