Hilversum, October 10, 2024 - The Polestar Capital Circular Debt Fund (PCDF) announces its €20 million debt financing of Circtec, a pioneering developer of recovered carbon black, circular naphtha and circular marine fuel from end-of-life tyres. With the financing of PCDF, Circtec complements the funding for the construction of the first phase of its commercial-scale pyrolysis recycling facility in the port area of Delfzijl (the Netherlands). In total, Circtec has now secured €150 million in equity, subsidies and debt financing for the Delfzijl project.
Discarded tyres pose significant environmental and health risks, accumulating in landfills, and polluting ecosystems with toxic substances. The current scale of tyre waste exceeds the reach of existing recycling efforts, with over half of Europe’s waste being incinerated or being exported to Asia and Africa for environmentally damaging disposal. This underscores the vital need for innovative solutions in tyre waste management. Moreover, the increasing adoption of electric vehicles will further exacerbate the tyre waste problem as tyres used for electric vehicles wear down faster.
Circtec’s technology offers a scalable solution to the global tyre waste problem by embracing circularity and reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Circtec, a UK-headquartered technology company, has developed a proprietary technology for decomposing end-of-life tyres through pyrolysis, (a process that transforms waste into valuable circular materials through thermal decomposition in an oxygen-free environment), and for upgrading the products to high-quality recycled chemicals and renewable fuels.
With the funding raised, Circtec is constructing Europe’s largest end-of-life tyre pyrolysis recycling facility in Delfzijl, the Netherlands. At full capacity, the Delfzijl plant will be able to tackle approximately 5% of the 3.6 million tons of end-of-life tyres that are generated in Europe. This will mean the recycling facility is set to be capable of reducing 228,000 tonnes of CO2-equivalents per year, which is the same as 3.5% of the chemical industry emissions in the Netherlands or the heating by natural gas of 82,000 Dutch homes.
Allen Timpany of Circtec says: “We are pleased to close the debt portion of the overall project finance with the Polestar Circular Debt Fund, a supportive impact fund from the Netherlands. Alongside support from BP, this finalizes the debt component of the Phase 1 Delfzijl project, and further supports the significant investment by Novo Holdings and AP Moller Holding that was previously announced at the closure of the equity funding round.”
Daan van Kassel of PCDF says: “Circtec is an absolute frontrunner in the recycling of waste tyres into valuable resources. Over the last decade we have looked at many end-of-life tire solutions, including various chemical recycling technologies, but none of them managed to get both the carbon black and the oil fraction to the quality needed to replace fossil alternatives. This is why we are proud that PCDF is able to support Circtec in the funding for their plant in Delfzijl, and we are confident that the company will make a large positive environmental impact when scaling up in the next few years.”
About the Polestar Capital Circular Debt Fund (PCDF)
PCDF is the largest debt fund of Europe dedicated to financing the transition to a circular economy. The fund recently closed its fundraising with €240 million capital. Through PCDF, Polestar Capital invests in innovative circular projects with the potential to create worldwide systemic ecological impact, both by waste reduction and recycling as well as the substitution of fossil fuels. This lowers the use of virgin resources, as well as carbon emissions. Often, these projects have difficulty raising enough funding. Banks usually find such projects too innovative and the projects are generally too capital intensive for venture capitalists to finance the non-subsidised part entirely with equity. By closing this funding gap, PCDF allows circular production companies to prove their technologies and business models on a commercial scale. In doing so, the fund paves the road for other financiers to finance the further scaling of these technologies. Investments by PCDF benefit from support from the European Union under the InvestEU Fund. For more information visit www.pcdf.nl
About Circtec
Circtec is a leading innovator and operator of pyrolysis technology to recycle waste into renewable fuels and circular chemicals, in order to support the energy transition and the move to a circular economy. The Circtec group has a footprint across five countries in Europe, with two commercial demonstration plants operating today and this large flagship plant under development in the Netherlands. In addition to production plants, Circtec group includes both design & engineering and research & development units, with an ongoing focus not just on scaling the Circtec process for chemical recycling of tyre waste, but also on adapting the process to other waste feedstocks. Founded in 2009 by British industrial decarbonisation entrepreneurs Allen Timpany and Robert Harper, Circtec’s proprietary production technologies, including its CIFRTM pyrolysis reactor system, have been developed to commercial scale, supplying several global multinational industrial partners with renewable fuel and circular chemical products. Circtec’s focus is on innovation and technology leadership, scaling sustainability in the chemical and renewable fuels sectors. For more information visit www.circtec.com
