In Japan, Sekisui Chemical Co., Ltd (Sekisui Chemical) and INCJ, Ltd, have announced the completion of a waste-to-ethanol demonstration plant in Kuji City, Iwate Prefecture. The first-of-its-kind demonstration facility is approximately one-tenth the size of a commercial-scale facility and will produce approximately 20 tonnes per day of ethanol from municipal solid waste (MSW) sourced from Kuji City.
The aim is to achieve commercialization by around 2025 and to start supplying
biorefinery (BR) ethanol to the market by implementing the first commercial-scale plant in Japan.
In the aim of achieving a sustainable society, we are engaged in innovation for solving social issues such as decarbonization and resource recycling, said Sekisui Chemical President and Representative Director Keita Kato.
Sufficient carbon available
There is sufficient carbon locked away in municipal waste to enable local production of everything needed in one’s daily life.
According to The World Bank, “with rapid population growth and urbanization, annual [global] waste generation is expected to increase by 70 percent from
2016 levels to 3.40 billion tonnes by 2050.”
Approximately 60 million tonnes of combustible waste are generated each year in Japan; this demonstration facility will help solve the municipal waste
challenges faced in both Japan and the rest of the world.
Leveraging joint technology
By leveraging joint LanzaTech NZ, Inc. and Sekisui Chemical Co., Ltd technology, municipal solid and industrial waste can be converted into ethanol using a microbial catalyst and gas fermentation process.
This technology has the opportunity to reduce waste and create an alternative, closed-loop carbon supply chain.
Using waste gases that would otherwise be combusted and emitted as carbon dioxide (CO2) and pollutants, the process offers more than just greenhouse gas
(GHG) reductions: it can reduce local air pollutants such as particulate and NOx emissions by 80 percent or more.
When converting MSW, the process avoids the need to landfill or incinerate unsorted, unrecyclable waste streams, avoiding both methane and CO2 emissions in the process.
Builds on successful pilot demo
The Kuji Plant builds upon the successful 2017 demonstration by LanzaTech and Sekisui Chemical Co. of the conversion of MSW-derived syngas to ethanol at a pilot scale, outside of Tokyo, Japan.
The syngas stream was produced by an existing commercial-scale gasification plant using unsorted MSW and showed that it is possible to recycle the carbon from unsorted MSW destined for landfill or incineration and ferment it to make new products that would otherwise come from fossil resources or sugars.
The plant achieved continuous ethanol production above design capacity, despite highly unstable and fluctuating syngas compositions and high levels of gas
contaminants.
Commercialization via Sekisui BioRefinery
In 2020, Sekisui Chemical and INCJ established a joint venture (JV) called Sekisui BioRefinery Co. Ltd (SBR) to verify and commercialize technology to convert combustible waste into ethanol using the microbial catalyst system jointly developed by Sekisui Chemical and LanzaTech.
Through great collaboration with stakeholders, including the Prefecture of Iwate and the City of Kuji, we were able to complete this demonstration plant on schedule, despite the continuing COVID-19 pandemic, said SBR President and Representative Director Toru Ryoso.
The waste-to-ethanol plant was funded with investment by SBR, and a private-public fund overseen by the Japanese Ministry of Economic, Trade, and Industry (METI). It has also received funding from the Japanese Ministry of the Environment.
LanzaTech is grateful for its partnership with Sekisui, INCJ, the Prefecture of Iwate, and the City of Kuji for their support in ensuring the completion of this demonstration facility. We are also grateful to the Government of Japan for its continued support and investment in sustainable technologies, said Dr Jennifer Holmgren, CEO of LanzaTech.
Closed-loop polyolefin
Sekisui Chemical is collaborating with Sumitomo Chemical Co. Ltd to build a new loop in which ethanol is converted into ethylene and then into plastic (polyolefin).
The goal is to create a new plastic resource recycling system in which the manufacturers of consumer goods use this plastic; the products are then used and disposed of and again returned to the BR plant so that they can be repeatedly recycled.
BR ethanol technology that converts waste into resources is an innovative technology that could solve many of these major issues. We hope that it will
contribute to creating and passing on, a rich, sustainable society to the next generation. We will continue to promote a wide variety of collaboration and work to commercialize technology that “converts waste into resources,” said Keita Kato.
This will require collaboration by many stakeholders, including corporations, local municipalities, and consumers.
Going forward, we will collaborate with partners and stakeholders in continued technological demonstration and studies for commercialization. We hope to contribute to achieving a sustainable resource-oriented, and low carbon society through the early implementation and commercialization of this BioRefinery (BR) ethanol technology, Toru Ryoso said.
JAA standard ethanol
The ethanol produced by BR technology is synthetic ethanol that meets the Japan Alcohol Association (JAA) standard, and therefore can be used as feedstock in other applications.
For example, the ethanol can be converted into ethylene and then kerosene for use as sustainable aviation fuel (SAF).
LanzaTech is committed to accelerating the commercialization of waste to ethanol, enabling Japan to meet its carbon needs with local resources. A pollution-free future is possible through this collaboration, ended Dr Jennifer Holmgren.
