December 15, 2025 12:57

The EU-funded research initiative Electro, which includes Austrian polyolefin producer Borealis among its partners, aims to develop a chemical recycling process for plastic waste using a high-efficiency, electrically heated catalytic pyrolysis reactor powered entirely by renewable energy. The technology also integrates a newly designed modular extruder for optimal pretreatment of waste materials.

The process produces pyrolysis oil from plastic waste, which can then be reused as feedstock in steam crackers to manufacture new plastics, thus enabling a circular value chain even for complex or contaminated waste streams.

Electro is specifically targeting hard-to-recycle plastics, including multilayer packaging and contaminated waste, sourced from South Korea and Indonesia. In the latter case, the project is linked to Project Stop, the waste management initiative launched in 2017 by Borealis and Systemiq.

According to project partners, replacing fossil-based energy with renewable electricity in the pyrolysis stage could cut greenhouse gas emissions by up to 90%, fully aligned with the EU’s circularity and decarbonization goals.

The four-year Electro project, launched in 2022 with more than €14 million in EU funding, involves 13 industrial and academic partners coordinated by Ghent University.

As a strategic partner, Borealis is responsible for the circular feedstock work package, which includes: evaluating full-range pyrolysis oil (pyoil) and its fractions; optimizing circular hydrocarbon mixtures for large-scale cracking, developing cracking strategies tailored to diverse pyoil qualities; and applying prefractionation, advanced filtration, and quality assessments to improve process performance..

In a milestone announced in September 2025, Electro partner Coolbrook reported the successful production of pyrolysis oil from plastic waste at its pilot facility in Brightlands, the Netherlands, using its proprietary rotodynamic reactor (RDR). The test achieved high yields of ethylene and propylene with stable performance, using only renewable electricity.
Coolbrook had already demonstrated its ability to heat gases such as air, steam, nitrogen and methane to temperatures exceeding 1,000 degrees Celsius — entirely without fossil fuels — making it a promising contributor to zero-emission industrial technologies.

See also: Electro project

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