Project of the Month: Showcasing the winner of the 2018 Innovation Radar Prize

On Thursday 6 December 2018, Gr3n (pronounced ‘green’) won the Innovation Radar Prize at the major ICT 2018 event in Vienna, Austria, organised by the European Commission. The highly prestigious prize was awarded due to Gr3n’s development of its innovative DEMETO technology that increases both the proportion of PET/polyester that can be recycled, and the overall quality of the recycled plastics produced. This was achieved through Gr3n’s participation in the EU-funded SYMBIOPTIMA project.

Climate Change and Environment

© Kwangmoozaa, Shutterstock

Once discarded, a lot of PET/polyester items result in waste which can only be burned for energy or which ends up as landfill, as they cannot be recycled using standard mechanical techniques. To address this environmental problem, the DEMETO technology uses a patented microwave radiation technology and associated chemical process to disassemble polymers to collect their constituent building blocks for reuse as virgin PET/polyester.

By the end of 2019, the plan is to finish a demo plant capable of handling 1 000 tonnes per year, and with more funding through the subsequent Horizon 2020 DEMETO project, the next phase is full commercialisation of the technology.

To read more, please click here to go to the corresponding CORDIS News article on the award.


“There is nothing (available) yet at the industrial scale, but this is a race... I have a request every week because everybody is struggling with this [waste] problem”
- Dr Maurizio Crippa, CEO, Gr3n

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Countries

Italy, United Kingdom