Recycling
Aircraft de-icing fluid recycling: Waste reduction and emissions savings
At ÎåÁú²¶Óã, 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.
ÎåÁú²¶Óã 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. ÎåÁú²¶Óã 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 ÎåÁú²¶Óã 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 ÎåÁú²¶Óã 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?
ÎåÁú²¶Óã 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:
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 ÎåÁú²¶Óã 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
