In the fall of 2011, Rising Sun Innovations worked with Cold Climate Innovation to determine the viability of operating a plastics-to-fuel machine in the Yukon. We concluded that such a machine has the potential to allow local recyclers and waste managers to turn plastic (numbered 4, 5 and 6) into profitable products including fuel.
The Blest 240 plastics to fuel machine was operated and tested at P&M recycling in Whitehorse. The machine was shown to successfully convert waste plastics to oil. A number of issues were identified during testing which will need to be addressed in order to make operating the machine commercially viable.
Anticipated benefits included: lower costs of recycling plastics, higher revenue for recycling centres because low value plastics could be turned into higher value products, less need to truck recyclables out of the territory, reduced dependence on oil that has to be trucked into the territory and increased economic activity in Yukon.
A team from Japan and the United States spent a week in Whitehorse training local staff on the safety and operations of the Blest 240. Number 4, 5 and 6 plastics were successfully turned into synthetic diesel. Testing found that one kilogram of plastic, using one kilowatt of electricity, produced one litre of oil.
Over the course of successive testing and operation phases, the following issues were identified and worked on: upstream plastic processing requirements, fuel viscosity, fuel chemical makeup, production rate, cost of continuous monitoring, stability of operation, and maintenance requirements. Further improvements in these areas are required to enable the machine to operate in a commercially viable way.
The machine is currently with CarbonTech Industries for further development and refinement of the technology and surrounding processes.