Alfa Laval to pioneer ground-breaking, sustainable heat exchanger recycling

The goal of this new initiative is twofold: Firstly, to encourage replacement of less energy-efficient plate heat exchangers by new modern products. This will lead to significant energy savings and reduced CO2 emissions in customers’ processes. Secondly, plate heat exchangers contain large amounts of valuable metals that can be recycled and reused in new Alfa Laval products; Stena Recycling’s innovative technology enables up to 100 percent metal regeneration.

“This is an important step towards a more circular and sustainable approach when sourcing material, manufacturing and supplying our products,” says Susanne Pahlén Åklundh, President of the Energy Division. “Starting in the Nordic region, the recycling initiative will include three types of heat exchangers. However, we see great opportunities to expand the scope to other product groups and geographical areas in the future. This initiative is a win-win, to the benefit of our customers as well as to society.”

“The collaboration with Alfa Laval shows once again what effective circular solutions we can create when we work together. Simultaneously, as the industry receives help with significant energy efficiencies, we ensure a high recycling rate of older and inefficient plate heat exchangers in Sweden. These materials can be used as circular quality raw materials for new products, including new products that Alfa Laval manufactures ", says Fredrik Pettersson, Managing Director of Stena Recycling Sweden.

Alfa Laval has the ambition of becoming carbon neutral by 2030 throughout the value chain – from material production and transportation to product manufacturing and delivery – and circularity of this kind is a key step?

The collaboration is inspired by the Circular Initiative, a business-driven collaboration arena in circularity led by Stena Recycling.