Recycling and PURification of Ethylene and Terephthalic Derivativebroad
R-PURE · Horizon Europe grant · 2026-06-01–2028-05-31
EC contribution
Total cost
Beneficiaries
About the data
Source: CORDIS (official EU open data), Horizon Europe. Framework HORIZON · call HORIZON-EIC-2025-ACCELERATOR-02 · scheme HORIZON-EIC-ACC · topic HORIZON-EIC-2025-ACCELERATOR-02-OPEN-01. CORDIS record →
Objective
With up to 90% of EU plastic waste unrecycled, the linear plastic economy will continue; heavily reliant on finite crude oil-based feedstocks. With the current recycling system solely based on mechanical recycling, which can only process 95% pure mono-stream feedstock, it means the more abundant post-consumer mixed waste mounting at municipal waste management sites will never be recycled as sorting will be prohibitively costly.DePoly SA has developed the world’s first energy- and cost-efficient recycling technology to convert post-consumer and post-industrial plastic waste back into their original monomers. These monomers can be sold to plastics manufacturers, creating sustainable oil free plastics for the market. The process is 65% more CO2-efficient than traditional plastic production from oil, and selectively treats only the targeted polymer in the mix. So, when targeting PET, only PET will be broken down to its monomers purified terephthalic acid (PTA) and mono-ethylene glycol (MEG) in the process, with the remainder of the waste stream unaffected. Ultimately, this means that we can:1. Eliminate the need for sorting plastic waste into mono-streams;2. Recycle plastic containing impurities (e.g., dyes, additives, food residues) and3. Break down other polymers into their monomers in a next step.This process is 99% efficient and allows recycling of waste infinite times, making elimination of crude oil feedstocks possible. The technology is at an advanced stage of development, having been tested extensively (for PET) at our 50 T/year pilot plant and with a 500 T/year semi-industrial Showcase plant under construction. This project seeks optimise and scale-up PTA and MEG purification and crystallisation processes to enable drop-in capability of monomers into existing PET production processes.
Beneficiaries (1)
| Organisation | Country | Role | EC contribution | SME |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| DePoly | CH | coordinator | €2,499,643 | Yes |
Get the DFM funding briefing — free
New EU defence calls, tenders and awards in your inbox.
Defence Finance Monitor is an analytical and informational product. Grant data is official CORDIS; payment and subscription happen on DFM Analysis.