Over 25 million tonnes of plastic waste are generated annually in the EU. To conserve fossil resources and meet the required recycling quotas, OMV’s ReOil® process offers an attractive option for the chemical recycling of plastic waste. Even contaminated, mixed fractions that are unsuitable for mechanical recycling can be processed. In the innovative ReOil® process, polymers are heated to temperatures above 400 °C in the absence of air, causing the hydrocarbon chains to break into shorter fragments. Owing to its chemical composition, the resulting product can be used as a substitute for crude oil and upgraded within existing refinery infrastructure into feedstock for plastic production and other petrochemical products. 

The Chair of Process Technology for Industrial Environmental Protection has been supporting the further development and scale-up of this process for many years. Research focuses on feedstock characteristics, factors influencing operational behaviour and product spectrum, as well as on the reaction mechanism and kinetics. Alongside experimental investigations, modelling and simulation methods are also applied. 

Contact Person

Univ.-Prof. Dipl.-Ing. Dr.-Ing. Markus Lehner- Chair of Process Technology and Environmental Protection

E-Mail: markus.lehner(at)unileoben.ac.at

Tel.: +43 3842 402 5000

https://www.omv.com/en/expertise/chemicals/reoil