Worn Again Technologies – the pioneering polymer recycling technology firm – announced the launch of its pilot R&D facility this week.
Located at CPI, a technology and innovation centre in Redcar, the pilot plant is dedicated to validate and develop Worn Again Technologies’ proprietary process which separates, decontaminates and extracts PET polymer and cellulose (from cotton) from non-reusable textiles and PET bottles. The PET polymer and cellulose then goes back into supply chains as raw materials to become new products as part of a continual cycle.
The state of the art process and pilot plant has been designed and built with the help of leading equipment providers, with the purpose of developing further process data, knowledge and understanding to enable the business to set the technical parameters and scale the engineering design as a step to industrialization. The CPI was chosen as a facility to host the plant in view of the technical excellence it provides to help accelerate technologies to market.
Nick Ryan, Worn Again Technologies’ Technology Director, commented, “The pilot is a significant step in developments as it will allow us to confirm and further optimise the different steps in the process in one unit, accelerating our engineering development to the next step of a demonstrator plant.”
The team, coordinated by Worn Again Technologies’ Chief Scientific Officer, Dr. Adam Walker, began working with CPI on the commissioning of the pilot in 2019. The apparatus will be run with a disciplined scientific process to meet the needs of the market and customers’ high expectations. Experimentation will include testing of the process using various inputs to understand the yield and quality impact on the product.
Cyndi Rhoades, Founder of Worn Again Technologies, added, “It is exciting to have progressed our developments from lab to plant. While there is still a long road ahead, it’s the next tangible step getting us closer to a scalable, commercially viable industrial process that will enable the move away from using finite virgin resources to the circularity of raw materials.”
For more information, please visit www.wornagain.co.uk.
