Korea’s Wooseok E&C launches plastic recycling project

Wooseok E&C Co. logo [Courtesy of Wooseok E&C]

Wooseok E&C Co., an environmental plant company in Korea, is stepping up efforts to develop an enviroment-friendly syngas production plant in partnership with a public corporation and a research institute.

Wooseok E&C announced on Wednesday that it has launched a project to develop a commercial plant for syngas production based on pyrolysis and gasification and design a standardization system along with KEPCO E&C Co., a local power plant design company, and the Institute for Advanced Engineering, a non-profit research institute.

Institute for Advanced Engineering and KEPCO E&C will develop a plant model based on Wooseok E&C’s independent eco-friendly syngas production technology.

“The collaborative project will help materialize a standardized and optimized model for various raw materials from our existing production facilities, thereby securing a solid foothold for commercializing syngas production technology,” said Wooseok E&C Chairman Choi Yong-kee.

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 environment pollutants as nitrogen oxide, sulfur oxide and dioxin and minimize the emission of carbon dioxide, a company official said.

The syngas production technology based on pyrolysis and gasification can also produce up to 100 kilograms to 300 kilograms 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.

This project is also attracting attention in the industry as a win-win model of collaboration through the fusion of technologies owned by a state-run corporation, a research institute and a small and medium-sized company.

Wooseok E&C is engaged in engineering design, construction management, renewable energy and environment plant and is growing into a developer that covers the entire plant process, including establishment of business plans, economic and technical feasibility review, basic and detailed design, and construction and test operation.