Covestro has opened a pilot plant for the chemical recycling of Vulkollan® high-performance polyurethane elastomers at its Leverkusen site.

The double-digit million-euro project takes the process from laboratory development to technical validation and is one of the first pilot installations of its kind worldwide for this material class.

Polyurethanes are a major family of materials, with more than 30 million tonnes produced worldwide annually. Around 70% of European PU volume consists of flexible and rigid foams; high-performance elastomers represent a smaller but technically demanding segment. They are used in applications such as forklift wheels, industrial rollers, railway buffers and vibration-control components, where durability and resistance to wear are essential.

Covestro’s process chemically breaks down selected end-of-life Vulkollan® products into purified building blocks for reuse. Under defined conditions, more than 90% of the material by mass can be recycled. According to the company, the recycled material can have a carbon footprint up to two-thirds lower than fossil-based virgin material.

Chemical recycling of polyurethane is also being developed internationally, but much of the work so far has focused on flexible and rigid foams. The Leverkusen project extends this approach to durable high-performance elastomers – a considerably less explored material class.

The pilot plant will now be used to test different waste streams, optimise the process and establish whether the technology can be scaled into an economically viable circular value chain.