Japan’s Mitsui Chemicals uses pyrolysis oil for petchem

Japanese petrochemical producer Mitsui Chemicals this month started using pyrolysis oil to make petrochemical products at its Osaka naphtha-fed cracker.

Mitsui Chemicals did not disclose how much pyrolysis oil, which is generated from waste plastics, it uses to produce petrochemical products through the mass balance method, which uses both recycled and conventional feedstocks. But it previously said it planned to buy thousands of tonnes of pyrolysis oil on a spot basis from domestic recycling and polymer wholesaler CFP.

Mitsui Chemicals said it can produce various petrochemical products like ethylene, propylene, butadiene and benzene, as well as polymers such as polyethylene and polypropylene, using pyrolysis oil, just like with conventional naphtha and biomass-based naphtha.

The company has used bio-naphtha to produce low-carbon products since December 2021 when it first processed 3,000t of bio-naphtha that it bought from Finnish biofuel producer Neste.

By Nanami Oki