Diesel from waste plastics

Archiv – Dutch environmental technology specialist EnvoSmart Technologies is planning to convert waste plastics into green diesel at plants throughout Europe, beginning at a site near Berlin in Germany. Dutch environmental technology specialist EnvoSmart Technologies is planning to convert waste plastics into green diesel at plants throughout Europe, beginning at a site near Berlin in Germany.
The company has already signed a Euro 118 million (US$ 142 million) licensing deal with Australia’s Ozmotech to secure access to vital technology. Ozmotech has developed a system capable of transforming unsorted plastic waste into high-quality green diesel that complies with international and European standards. Meanwhile, the EnvoFuel process uses the so-called ThermoFuel system – involving liquefaction, pyrolysis and catalytic breakdown of plastics – to convert waste plastics into diesel fuel. The system can handle a wide variety of plastics that are currently dispatched to landfill.
Advantages of the process include its ability to handle unsorted, unwashed plastics, as well as its extremely high efficiency. An EnvoFuel plant can produce up to 9300 litres of high-grade diesel fuel from 10 tonnes of waste plastics, with system module capacities ranging from 10 up to 20 tonnes per day.
EnvoSmart holds the exclusive sales and distribution rights for Ozmotech’€™s ThermoFuel system in 14 European countries. The company plans to install and operate at least 31 ThermoFuel lines from Sweden down to Italy as part of an investment programme worth some Euro 200 million (US$ 240 million). The line to be installed near Berlin will require investment of some Euro 40 million (US$ 47 million) and is expected to become operational in the first quarter of 2007; it will produce 38 million litres of diesel per annum from 42 000 tonnes of plastic waste. Also scheduled for next year are plants at Amsterdam and Eindhoven in The Netherlands, as well as facilities in Poland and Sweden, according to EnvoSmart.