Japanese duo to recycle marine plastic waste into fuel oil and petrochemical products
Japanese shipping line Mitsui O.S.K. Lines (MOL) and petroleum company Idemitsu Kosan have commenced a demonstration test on recycling marine plastic waste into fuel oil and petrochemical products.
PHOTO: Recycling chain for the project. MOL
MOL’s subsidiary, Nihon Tug-Boat, has installed an automated marine debris collection device called Seabin at the Hiroshima Municipal Pier in Japan. The Seabin is used as “a base for tugboats, with the aim of promoting marine environment conservation,” MOL says.
As part of the demonstration test, Chemical Recycle Japan – a unit of Idemitsu Kosan – will use the marine plastic waste collected by Seabin as raw material to produce oil.
Chemical Recycle Japan utilises its technology to convert used plastics into oil to produce generated oil as a raw material in place of crude oil, which is then refined, cracked, and polymerized in existing refining equipment and petrochemical equipment to produce "renewable chemicals.”
Through a series of tests, Idemitsu Kosan will confirm the “availability of generated oil as a raw material for petrochemical products and fuel oils and verify the feasibility of recycling marine plastic waste.”
Idemitsu Kosan intends to produce renewable chemicals and renewable fuel oil using the oil derived from marine plastic waste.
Both companies intend “to realize a carbon-neutral and recycling-oriented society and to pursue marine environmental conservation” through the demonstration test, MOL concludes.
By Tuhin Roy
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