Announcement • Jul 17
Aduro Clean Technologies And ECOCE Advance Mexico Plastics Collaboration To HCT Testing
Aduro Clean Technologies Inc. announced that its collaboration with ECOCE, A.C. has advanced to the next phase following completion of Phase 1 feedstock mapping and stream selection. Selected post-consumer flexible plastic packaging streams in Mexico are now moving into a Hydrochemolytic Technology test campaign to evaluate their conversion into liquid hydrocarbon products for downstream circular plastics applications. The collaboration is structured as a phased, data-driven evaluation of flexible plastic packaging collected through recovery systems in Mexico. Phase 1 drew on ECOCE’s ongoing national feedstock mapping program, conducted for its member companies, from which the parties completed the selection of candidate material streams for the next stage of work. Led by ECOCE, the mapping identified multiple post-consumer flexible packaging streams and assessed them for estimated availability, collection routes, physical form, contamination profile, and preparation requirements. The work identified candidate streams with sufficient available volume to support an industrially relevant evaluation and with material characteristics that warrant advancement to HCT testing. Flexible plastic packaging is one of the most difficult material categories to manage within existing recycling systems. These streams can include polyethylene, polypropylene, and multilayer packaging formats, along with inks, adhesives, mixed structures, small formats, and varying levels of contamination. For flexible packaging streams that are not well suited to mechanical or physical recycling, the collaboration is evaluating whether HCT can provide a route to recover hydrocarbon value from these materials and help return them to the plastics value chain. ECOCE has identified flexible plastic packaging as a major and growing material category in Mexico, with available data indicating that approximately 1,500,000 tonnes of flexible plastic packaging are generated annually in the country. Phase 1 has built on that market context by mapping candidate flexible and multilayer plastic packaging waste streams, including material categories, collection routes, geographic sourcing, and indicative contamination levels. The materials mapped through Phase 1 include flexible polypropylene packaging, flexible polyethylene packaging, and multilayer flexible packaging, including common post-consumer formats such as snack and cookie wrappers, grocery and bread bags, seed and grain packaging, pet food packaging, cold-cut and dairy packaging, and resealable pouch formats. The objective is to build an evidence-based understanding of how selected flexible packaging streams can move through a circular value chain: from post-consumer collection and characterization, through feedstock preparation and HCT conversion, to liquid hydrocarbon products for evaluation by petrochemical and polymer value chains. With Phase 1 complete and the next-phase testing program defined, the collaboration now moves into HCT testing of selected material streams. Aduro will begin with lab-scale evaluation to assess how selected Mexican flexible and multilayer plastic waste streams respond to HCT, including processability, product characteristics, yield, residues, contaminant behaviour, and mass balance. Successful lab-scale results will inform progression to Phase 3 testing on the Next Generation Process Pilot Plant to support scale-up assessment, customer evaluation, and future commercial analysis. Results from the next phase will give Aduro Clean Technologies Inc. and ECOCE, A.C. the technical and economic evidence to help assess material suitability, product quality, scale-up requirements, and future commercial options for returning difficult-to-recycle flexible packaging to the plastics value chain.
