Recycling
Aircraft de-icing fluid recycling: Waste reduction and emissions savings
At Clariant, we support our customers’ efforts to reduce the environmental impact of their airport operations and lower costs. Our de-icer fluid recycling management concepts established an ecological, economical and sustainable solution to the removal and re-use of aircraft run-off. As a result, customers were able to improve cost efficiency and benefit the environment by using up to 60% recycled fluid that minimizes both, new material requirements and energy consumption.
Clariant can introduce you to different recycling systems. Upon request, we can present options for comprehensive solutions to enable engineering, installation, management and operations for airport aircraft de-icing fluid recycling.
Established recycling operations
In 2009, Oslo Airport sought solutions for recycling aircraft de-icing fluid, aligning with growing sustainability demands. Clariant developed an innovative process to concentrate and distill glycol from used de-icing fluid into propylene glycol. The concept leveraged an existing partnership with a local logistics supplier who had strategic infrastructure at the airport.
The project required significant facility upgrades and investment in concentration equipment and automation systems, combined with cross-functional expertise from Sales, Management, and R&D teams. The glycol recycling and propylene glycol production processes began operations in 2011. While originally Clariant operated the full recycling process, the processing to industrial grade MPG has been taken over by a local Scandinavian partner.
Evolution: Lower Product Carbon Footprint for de-icing products
In the meantime, the Clariant plant at Uddevalla received the approval to use recycled glycol for our Safewing™ products. Since 2022 the plant has been providing Type I De-icing Fluids with recycled glycol to airports, airport service providers and airlines in Scandinavia. In 2024, the plant’s storage facility was expanded to further improve the contribution to products with a lower product carbon footprint (PCF) compared to the use of the purely virgin fossil-based alternative.
What does the future of our de-icing solution look like?
Clariant will further follow the implementation of low PCF de-icing products and intends to support spreading the recycling approach. Do you want to be part of it?
*Calculated according to: https://www.epa.gov/energy/greenhouse-gas-equivalencies-calculator
On-site and Off-site recycling
On-site recycling
- Collection of the run-off in suitable storage facilities
- Mechanical cleaning (removal of precipitates, oil, aircraft fuel and other)
- Chemical cleaning (only needed by the “ready-to-use” ADF concept)
- Evaporation of excess water (and distillation of the glycol, needed by the “neat” ADF concept)
- Final processing (addition of a Clariant ADF additive package)
Off-site recycling
- Collection of the run-off in suitable storage facilities
- Mechanical cleaning with standard filtration technology
- Evaporation of water to a final glycol content in the concentrate of approx. 50-60 %
- Transportation of the concentrate and final processing into industrial grade glycol
- Re-use of the glycol in different industrial applications (Open loop), including new SAFEWING Type I ADF, with up to 60% recycled MPG
- Flexibility: Different size of the pre-concentration units offering different process capacity, adjustable to your volumes of de-icing fluid run-off
