Klean selects Chemex for flagship tyre pyrolysis project

Klean selects Chemex for flagship tyre pyrolysis project

Canada’s Klean Industries Inc., a tyre pyrolysis equipment manufacturer and project developer, says it has selected Chemex Global, a subsidiary of The Shaw Group, to engineer, procure and fabricate Klean’s 20,000-tonne hydrocarbon upgrading system for its Boardman, Oregon, project. Both parties intend to execute the design-build contract, which includes process and schedule guarantees in the first quarter of 2023.

The Boardman facility will convert end-of-life-tyres (ELTs) otherwise destined for landfill or incineration into highly valuable products such as a recovered carbon black (rCB) used as a replacement for new carbon blacks and recovered fuel oil (rFO) that is blended with Carbon Black Oil (CBO) to be used in the creation of new virgin biobased carbon blacks. This is a significant advancement in developing circularity within both the carbon black and tyre manufacturing industries while also meeting environmental, social, governance (ESG) mandates. Additional attributes include notable reductions in carbon emissions while also addressing significant improvement in the production of virgin carbon blacks because the rFO contains a biobased content of approximately 35%-40%, which is a result of natural rubber found in scrap tyres.

Chemex Global will provide a modular back-end pyrolysis oil condensing and fractionation system, and control systems. This system includes the facilitation of the integration of its technology and equipment into the overall facility for the conversion of the recovered pyrolysis oil. The pyrolysis oil is condensed and then split into two streams of which approximately 85% is a hydrocarbon product of similar quality to VLSFO 1% and 15% is a naphtha-like product.

The lighter naphtha-like product is destined for the California marketplace for applications that meet the Low Carbon Fuels Standard (LCFS) for the creation of low-carbon intensity road fuels, diesel, and other valuable products. Further, Chemex Global will fully commission the oil upgrading unit. 

The fabrication of the modular oil upgrading system will be completed by Chemex’s parent company, Shaw Group, at its shops across the US, including its 440,000-sq-ft module facility in Lake Charles and pipe fabrication facilities in Walker, Louisiana, and El Dorado, Arkansas.

“It’s taken some time to find the right partners for Klean’s projects that have the depth of experience needed for the timely rollout of our integrated resource recovery projects. Our projects are capital-intensive and require cost-effective and highly technical solutions that can deliver specified output products on a guaranteed basis. With +40 more projects under development, we believe Chemex offers the solutions that best fit our timelines and budget and we look for to expanding this relationship to develop more projects together,” said Jesse Klinkhamer, CEO of Klean Industries Inc. 

“Our diverse engineering capabilities combined with world-class fabrication assets enabled us to assess the project and minimize field execution to the greatest extent possible while keeping project development plans on a fixed schedule. We look forward to further expanding our presence in the pyrolysis oil space in particular and the waste-to-energy space in general, where we feel we are quickly establishing a market-leading position because of our ability to provide turnkey execution on a highly accelerated basis,” added Matt Rodgers, Chief Commercial Officer, Chemex Global.