BASF is taking a stake worth €20 million in Quantafuel, a Norwegian firm specialized in pyrolysis of mixed plastic waste and purification of pyrolysis oil. The transaction will be carried out through the issue of new shares in combination with a convertible loan.

Together, the partners will pursue joint development of the production process for purified hydrocarbon products as well as jointly develop Quantafuel’s technology for chemical recycling – based on an integrated process of pyrolysis and purification – with the aim of using the output as a feedstock in chemical production.

For at least four years after the start-up of the Oslo-based company’s plant in Skive, Denmark, planned for the end of 2019, the German chemical giant will have right of first refusal for the facility’s output of chemically recycled pyrolysis oil and purified hydrocarbons.

Quantafuel will also have the right to license the jointly developed technology to third parties.

BASF said it plans to use the secondary raw materials in its ChemCycling project to develop the market for chemically recycled plastics, together with selected customers. At its Ludwigshafen headquarters, it will feed the pyrolysis mix into its fully integrated production network to partially replace fossil fuels.

To push commercialization of the technology, BASF and Quantafuel want to jointly build plants to produce purified hydrocarbons via chemical recycling.