A company founded by a Ukrainian engineer says it has developed a process to convert discarded mixed plastics into a synthetic gas, additives for diesel fuel and gasoline as well as a “spreading grease,” a paraffin-like product and carbon pigment.
Serhii Zarovskyi, the founder and production engineer Ikhlyas Waste to Energy LLC (Ikhlyas WTE), which has offices in New York, Florida and Turkey, says the firm’s methodology involves recycling mixed, non-liquid polyethylene (PE) and polypropylene (PP) scrap using “innovative technology” involving the thermal vacuum loading of low-bulk density scrap into a heated process using “the lipid mass of algae.”
According to Zaraovskyi, the company has received a U.S. patent attached to the process, and Ikhlyas WTE is ready to offer the North American market systems with capacities to convert up to 5, 10 or 30 metric tons of plastic scrap per day.
Ikhlyas WTE and its founder says the system has been designed to handle a wide variety of material, describing potential feedstock as “mixed plastic waste from many household and industrial products, including single-use, labelled PE, PP, high-density polyethylene (HDPE), low-density polyethylene (LDPE),” including “all kinds of bags and film, stretch film, tubes from toothpaste, creams, ointments, etc.”
Beyond packaging, the company says its technology can accept for conversion the types of mixed materials that have proven problematic for mechanical recyclers and other chemical recyclers alike, including pouches that hold mayonnaise and sauces, candy wrappers, snack packages, vacuum packaging, shrink film, labels from PET bottles, aseptic packaging and plastic medical waste.
“Unlike other technologies, our innovative method and industrial model is a completely new and efficient approach,” says the firm.
The technology’s use of algae lipids rather than chemical solutions means its end products “are free of sulfur, heavy metals and other harmful substances,” claims the company. It says most of its end products require minimal additional treatment, although if mixed-material pouch packaging is accepted, “grinding and sieving to extract the aluminum foil” may be needed.
Zaraovskyi is pursuing projects that can potentially tie into Inflation Reduction Act or other federal funding and says Ikhlyas WTE “wants to implement their project in the state of New York, to organize a demonstration site on which to build a plant for advanced recycling of non-liquid plastic waste with a capacity of 10 tons per day.”
Adds the company founder, “Financing the construction of our project will be the first step in completing the circular economy, achieving sustainable development goals, and strengthening the energy strength and environmental security of the United States.”
On its website, Ikhlyas WTE says mechanical recycling is best suited for discarded materials that can be effectively and affordably cleaned and sorted. It categorizes some 73 percent of plastic discards as “difficult to recycle polymers,” saying its process is designed to address some of that material.
Courtesy : recyclingtoday.com
