Wooseok E&C launches plastic recycling project
Wooseok E&C Chairman Choi Yong-kee, center, poses with officials from the Institute for Advanced Engineering and KOPEC E&C at a media event announcing a project to recycle plastic waste on reclaimed land at Saemangeum, Gunsan, North Jeolla Province, April 11. Courtesy of Wooseok E&C
By Sah Dong-seok
Wooseok E&C has embarked on a project to recycle plastic waste using syngas production technology in collaboration with the Institute for Advanced Engineering, a non-profit research agency, and KEPCO E&C, a power plant design company.
The project is intended to develop a commercial plant for syngas production based on pyrolysis and gasification and design a standardization system. The plant development is founded on Wooseok E&C's syngas production technology in a single gasifier by the continuous pyrolysis process.
Wooseok E&C's syngas production technology has been developed to produce hydrogen and carbon monoxide by converting various plastics into syngas after reacting them with high-temperature steam and oxygen in the reductive condition of over 1,300 degrees through cryogenic separation and purification processes. The technology can fundamentally prevent the generation of such environmental pollutants as nitrogen oxide, sulfur oxide and dioxin and minimize the emission of carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas, a company spokesman said.
By taking part in the project to upgrade Wooseok E&C's syngas production technology, KEPCO and the Institute for Advanced Engineering expect to see a successful case of collaboration from the fusion of technologies owned by a state-run corporation, a research institute and a small and medium-sized company.
To help reduce greenhouse gases, the Korean government has adopted the conversion of plastic waste into fuels and raw materials as a national project through chemical recycling methods such as pyrolysis. While the well-known low-temperature pyrolysis technology is mainly for oil production, Wooseok E&C's pyrolysis gasification technology is aimed at producing syngas and converting it into various raw materials and fuels such as methanol, dimethyl ether, synthetic natural gas, hydrogen and carbon monoxide.
For this reason, a Wooseok E&C official said, the technology will dramatically expand the existing plastic recycling sphere and contribute to building a carbon-neutral society through the expansion of corporate business areas.
The syngas production technology based on pyrolysis and gasification can produce up to 100 to 300 kg of hydrogen from 1 ton of plastics by adjusting the amount of steam used as a reactant and oxygen supply. The hydrogen production cost can be lowered to less than 2,000 won ($1.49), depending on the selling price of carbon monoxide. Produced hydrogen and carbon monoxide are expected to contribute to realizing carbon neutrality and creating a sustainable resource circulation economy.
The collaborative project will help materialize a standardized model optimized for various raw materials, thereby securing a solid foothold for commercializing the syngas production technology, Wooseok E&C said.