PK Clean and Sustane partner for plastic to fuel project

Renewable waste companies PK Clean Technologies Inc., Salt Lake City, and Sustane Technologies Inc., Halifax, Nova Scotia, have executed an engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contract to install a plastic to synthetic diesel plant in Chester, Nova Scotia. The build is expected to be completed in December 2017 and the first fuel output delivered by early 2018.

PK Clean is supplying the technology to Sustane, which is in the process of building an advanced materials separation facility to extract the plastic needed from municipal solid waste (MSW) for conversion to synthetic diesel, as well as recover biomass pellets from the organic waste. The Sustane facility will have the capacity to process 70,000 tons per year of MSW.

The plastic to fuel plant will have a throughput capability of 3,500 tons of mixed end-of-life plastics (ELP) per a year that will produce up to 832,000 gallons of synthetic fuel.

“The plastics recycling landscape has gone through significant changes globally and much of it hasn’t been positive. Environmentally conscious people are separating their plastics and want to recycle as much as possible, but most plastic still isn’t being recycled. We aim to offer a value-added solution for this difficult to recycle material and divert it from our landfills, waterways and our oceans,” says Priyanka Bakaya, founder and CEO of PK Clean.

The PK Clean technology involves the thermal degradation of the waste plastic in the absence of oxygen. The plastic transforms into a hydrocarbon vapor that is then condensed to create a fuel with similar properties to diesel. PK Clean will complete the design work and manufacturing at its headquarters.

The Sustane technology separates MSW into recyclable materials which include metals, aggregate, clean biomass pellets and plastic for transformation into synthetic diesel.

“We look forward to the Chester site being operational next year and we are working with three new sites within North America to source an additional 300,000 tons of MSW per year that has the potential to produce 10 million gallons of synthetic fuel in addition to biomass and recyclables,” says Peter Vinall, cofounder and president of Sustane.