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YSU, startup team on energy research
YOUNGSTOWN
Converting plastic and rubber waste to commercially viable products, such as gasoline and diesel fuel and new plastics, is the primary goal of a new collaboration between Youngstown State University and Polyflow LLC of Akron.
Also on the line, said YSU officials, are potential jobs for future Youngstown State University graduates, reduced dependence on foreign oil and extended lives of landfills.
The waste bane-to-boon project is funded by a $1.6 million grant from Ohio’s Third Frontier program, about $600,000 of which will come to YSU to develop a laboratory in which to refine the Polyflow process to help make it commercially feasible.
The remainder of the grant will go to Polyflow, a startup company, for construction of a full-scale, 2.5-ton-per-hour demonstration processor that converts plastic and polymer waste, such as bread wrappers, soft-drink containers and tires, into saleable raw materials.
Polyflow and YSU officials announced the grant Tuesday .
The project represents continuation of transforming YSU into an urban research university, said YSU President Cynthia Anderson.
“It could have positive ramifications for the university, for Ohio and for the world,” she said.
Ohio Third Frontier is a tax-supported, technology-based economic- development initiative that supports existing industries that are transforming themselves with new globally competitive products and fostering the formation and attraction of new companies in emerging industry sectors.
With this YSU-business collaboration, the university, under the leadership of Josef Simeonsson, associate professor of chemistry, will provide technical research support using Third Frontier-funded instrumentation and lab equipment to establish a fuel-analysis and testing laboratory.
The new laboratory not only will support Polyflow’s commercialization efforts but also will enable YSU to provide support to other companies and organizations looking to develop waste-to-energy and alternative-energy technologies, Simeonsson said.
Martin Abraham, dean of the YSU College of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM), said the collaboration will further expand YSU’s capabilities on behalf of its students, allowing them to gain hands-on experience in this area of growing national need.
“The strong collaborative energy exhibited in the culture at YSU and the 2010 YSU Sustainability Forum was key to our developing this concept of a cluster of technology excellence in waste to valued liquids,” said Jay Schabel, chief executive of Polyflow.
Polyflow, which has a pilot processor in Akron for small-scale demonstrations, uses polymer waste, much of which is traditionally considered to be “unrecyclable” and dumped into landfills. Instead, the material is fed into a processing machine that uses heat to break up polymers and reforms them into new molecules, producing petroleum that is lighter than crude oil. Through a process similar to distillation, the company extracts byproducts, including petrochemicals used to make solvents and new polymers, high-octane gasoline and diesel fuel.
Third Frontier funding and the partnership with YSU started with a discussion at the 2010 YSU Sustainable Energy Forum and led to development of the joint YSU/Polyflow team that developed the Third Frontier funding proposal.
The 2011 YSU Sustainable Energy Forum is Sunday, Monday and Tuesday. The theme of this year’s forum is “Driving Down the Commercialization Cost of Energy Technologies” and will feature dozens of presentations from sustainable-energy experts from around the nation, officials said.