Enerkem to Convert Municipal Waste into Bio-fuel

A Canadian manufacturing company has declared its intentions to commence building a bigger sized plant to convert non-reusable wastes into bio-fuel. The Quebec-based Enerkem plant will globally become the first plant to produce 10 million gallons of fuel with 5% ethanol and petrol mix in a year.

The biofuel produced from the plant while meeting the renewable fuel standards determined by the Alberta Province and the Federal government of Canada can also be used to run around 400,000 cars.

The company is expected to start its commercial production of biofuel from the commencement of next year and will use approximately 100,000 tons of municipal waste for converting it into fuel every year. The conversion process designed by the company requires pre-sorting of some type of wastes while those materials with carbon molecules can be recycled by utilizing a chemical process. The conversion process utilizes a mix of chemicals that accelerates a chemical reaction, heat and pressure to change the carbon remains in to fuel that can be used for transportation and other useful chemical substances.

The Enerkem plant has received an amount of $20 million from the City of Edmonton and Alberta Innovates. The program has also got $3.35 million funding from Alberta Energy to support renewable energy investment.