Sumitomo Chemical to achieve acrylic resin pyrolysis recovery MMA process

On December 23, Sumitomo Chemical announced that it had jointly developed a technology with Nippon Steel to efficiently recycle acrylic resin from thermal decomposition into MMA (methyl methacrylate) monomer, and set up a new demonstration facility at its Ehime plant. Related products will be available in the spring of 2023.

In addition to having extremely high transparency in plastics, acrylic resin also has excellent weather resistance and processability. It is widely used in automotive taillights, household appliances, sinks, liquid crystal displays, anti-droplet boards and so on. On the other hand, it has become an urgent task to promote the recycling of plastics made from fossil resources by reducing greenhouse gases (GHG) emitted during the process from manufacturing to use.

The regenerated MMA monomers are of the same quality as fossil resource-based materials and are expected to reduce overall life-cycle greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by more than 60% compared to previous products.

In addition, material sources for recycling are already in the works. While Sumitomo Chemical recycles waste and used acrylic resins from its long-time partners, Nipura Corporation and major home appliance manufacturers, customers for recycling resins are also in progress. In the future, through cooperation with different industries, from acrylic resin recycling to regeneration, productization, to accelerate the construction of acrylic resin resource recycling system.