Aduro’s tech works with hard to recycle, dirty, mixed plastic. Search for Eric Appelman interview on YouTube for more info. Some of the retail investor coverage is cringeworthy, but my take is the tech is likely as good as described (disclosure: I’m an investor).
Mixed plastic is definitely impressive, but how is it separated? I imagine a lot of it must be done by hand? And then washed with water? Seems both labor intensive and energy intensive
No, they pass it through successively intensive process conditions, each of which selects for a different plastic type. No need to wash, their process is water based and some contamination from organic material actually helps in saturating the output product.
Apparently 95% of the test sample can be recovered. If its dirty and mixed, how much can TPA can be recovered and is the sludge chemically inert and landfillable?
Results will vary a lot with all the parameters (of which there are many). They don’t disclose all the detail but I know they have done thousands of tests across the parameters space. I know they believe they can process sludge produced from other processes.. The industry generally is very opaque, I think for competitive reasons and also because it’s so complex/nuanced.
