INITIAL SITUATION
The chemical industry faces the challenge of transforming its value chains to achieve climate neutrality and moving away from fossil feedstocks such as natural gas. This transformation is essential to achieving Germany’s climate and energy policy goals. The H2-Reallabor Burghausen is the first project to investigate this climate-neutral transformation towards a future hydrogen economy on site, under real-world conditions. To this end, 35 renowned partners from academia and industry have joined forces in a four-year project, funded by the German Federal Government as a flagship project with over €40 million and based in the ChemDelta Bavaria region in south-eastern Upper Bavaria.
A key area of focus is the circular economy and the use of residual materials: a significant proportion of complex waste is currently difficult to recycle. Mechanical recycling is particularly suitable for homogeneous material streams, but reaches its limits with complex, heterogeneous residues such as mixed plastics or chlorine-containing fractions. A viable route is still lacking for these materials to keep them in the cycle as chemical feedstocks rather than burning them.
PROJECT OBJECTIVE
The aim of the work package is to develop innovative technologies for the utilisation and recycling of residual materials, enabling basic and fine chemicals to be produced from complex waste streams – contributing to closed material cycles in the chemical industry.
PlasmaAir focuses on “Thermochemical recycling of complex residual material fractions by means of plasma gasification”. The thermochemical conversion of complex residual materials (e.g. mixed plastics and chlorine-containing residual materials) is being investigated as a form of (thermo)chemical recycling. The process envisaged is a combination of pretreatment by pyrolysis in a rotary kiln and steam-plasma co-current gasification, which is intended to convert complex waste into high-quality synthesis gas that can then be further processed, for example into methanol.
OUR SOLUTION
PlasmaAir AG develops, builds and commissions a plasma-based synthesis gas conditioning system (Waste-to-X: converting organic waste into valuable products). Its role in the process is twofold: supplying synthesis gas and treating the pyrolysis gas from an upstream rotary kiln.
The core of the project is the development of a plasma torch for reducing plasma gases, based on water vapour plasma.
Delivery will take place in two stages:
Stage 1:
Delivery of a 50 kW water vapour plasma system – delivered in 2024. This system is used to qualify the plasma technology for gasifying wood waste. The process has been successfully demonstrated.
Stage 2:
Delivery of a 50 kW water vapour plasma system in a container for synthesis gas conditioning – due at the end of 2026.
PlasmaAir is therefore delivering not just a single plasma source, but a complete technology that demonstrates how complex residual materials can be converted into usable synthesis gas by combining pyrolysis with steam plasma gasification. This approach brings together recycling and the Waste-to-X principle: waste becomes a raw material for the chemical industry.
