Italy-based multinational oil and gas company Eni’s environmental services arm Syndial has announced the start of operations at its waste-to-fuel pilot plant at the Gela refinery.
Image: Eni’s Syndial to start operations at waste-to-fuel pilot plant in Gela. Photo: Courtesy of andhu at FreeDigitalPhotos.net.
Eni’s new plant converts Organic Fraction of Municipal Solid Waste (OFMSW) by recycling it into bio-oil, which has a potential to be used as next-generation fuels.
The company claims the new pilot project would be the first major step in its journey toward building industrial-scale plants, providing significant environmental benefits for large urban areas in Italy and abroad.
Eni’s Renewable Energy and Environmental R&D Center in Novara has created the proprietary waste-to-fuel technology. Through this pilot project, the company’s own processing technology is being launched.
The waste-to-fuel technology facilitates the conversion of biomass into usable energy, enabling the conversion process to complete in just a few hours with a low environmental impact.
The operations at Gela plant are expected to help Eni with gathering the data required for the design of similar future plants.
The Gela pilot plant is capable of producing approximately 70kg bio-oil per day and is supplied with 700kg of organic waste per day supplied by SRR, a waste management company in Ragusa.
Eni stated: “The waste-to-fuel project is a tangible example of Eni’s integrated circular economy model in action. In addition to repurposing reclaimed or disused sites, Eni extracts value from raw materials found in waste by transforming them into new energy materials with zero impact on the food chain.
“Simultaneously, Eni makes a contribution to the areas where it operates by offering support to the municipal waste disposal system.”