Recycling company building $50m plastic-to-fuel plant
AN EXCITING new use has been found for the annoying plastic waste that often washes up on beaches and clogs rubbish dumps: fuel.
It may sound too good to be true, given the soaring price of crude oil and the global hunt for alternative fuels, but mainboard-listed Enviro-Hub Holdings says it is building the world's first large-scale, commercial plastic-to-fuel plant.
Putting waste to good use
HOW ENVIRO-HUB'S PLANT WORKS
Mixed waste plastic is fed to a reactor to be melted at 350 deg C.
A special catalyst is added at controlled intervals, whereby a process called depolymerisation starts.
The catalyst 'cracks' the polymers of the waste plastic, producing three by-products: diesel, liquid petroleum gas and coke.
The process takes an initial three hours to start up, after which waste plastic can be fed continuously into the reactor all day.
QUICK FACTS
The first phase of Enviro-Hub's plant will be able to take up to 100 tonnes of waste plastic a day.
At 30,000 tonnes a year, the plant is expected to produce 20 million litres of diesel, four to five million kilograms of gas and 1,500 tonnes of coke.
The plant will operate 330 days a year.
The waste management and recycling firm yesterday announced the construction of Singapore's first $50 million plastic-to-fuel plant - which converts waste plastic into useable fuels and gases.
Its executive chairman, Mr Raymond Ng, told The Straits Times that Enviro-Hub had been researching a long-term environmental solution for plastics since 2005.
Success came only last month, when a pilot plant it built proved that the technology imported from India worked.
This patented technology, for which Enviro-Hub now holds an exclusive licence, heats waste plastic with a special catalyst that breaks it down into 85 per cent diesel, 10 per cent liquid petroleum gas and 5 per cent coke.
'This plant is a historic milestone for the company,' said Mr Ng, formerly the co-founder of waste recycler Citiraya Industries, now known as Centillion Environment and Recycling.
'Plastic waste has always been a big problem for the world. The commercial potential in this technology is huge,' said Mr Ng.
Enviro-Hub's new 200,000 sq ft plant in Tuas, which will cost an initial $30 million to build, will be able to convert into fuel 30,000 tonnes of waste plastic a year.
Mr Mohamed Gani Mohamed Ansari, business development director of Enviro-Hub unit Cimelia Resource Recovery, said the diesel produced - unlike in older technologies - would have low sulphur content and also lower carbon dioxide emissions. The heating process of converting the waste plastic into fuel would also be emissions-free, said Mr Ansari.
Enviro-Hub is now looking into seeking carbon credits from the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.
These credits are savings in carbon dioxide emissions - largely blamed by scientists for global climate change - that can be traded on the carbon market.
Enviro-Hub's facility - equivalent to a 24MW plant - will use about 5 per cent of the fuel it generates to power itself.
The rest will either be used to power the rest of Enviro-Hub's plants nearby or sold to industries.
The plant will start operations by the second quarter of next year, with its capacity expanding to 50,000 tonnes a year at an additional cost of $20 million by end-2008, said Mr Ng.
Enviro-Hub yesterday incorporated a new unit - Enviro-Power - to operate the plant.
Funding for the plant is internal, the firm said in a statement to the Singapore Exchange.
Singapore is estimated to generate more than 300,000 tonnes of waste plastic a year - a capacity Enviro-Hub hopes its plant will eventually reach.
Enviro-Hub also announced late yesterday that it would invest US$4.2 million (S$6.1 million) in a 30 per cent stake in Enviro Energy - a company incorporated in the Cayman Islands.
Enviro Energy, through a unit in Thailand, will also be looking to set up a similar plastic-to-fuel plant in Thailand.
The setting up of Enviro-Power and the investment in Enviro Energy are not expected to have any financial impact on the company's current financial year.
Enviro-Hub's shares was 0.5 cent higher at 57.5 cents at yesterday's close.
