Aduro receives $1.15-million joint NSERC Alliance-Mitacs grant for chemical recycling project

Aduro Clean Technologies Inc., a Canadian developer of patented water-based technologies to chemically recycle plastics and to transform heavy crude and renewable oils into newer resources, has partnered with the University of Western Ontario on a new $1.15-million research project.

The project, entitled “Tuning Supercritical Fluids for Polymer Recycling to Monomers and Chemicals,” has been approved and awarded the non-repayable funds by the National Sciences and Engineering Research Council Alliance (NSERC) and non-profit national research organization Mitacs’ Accelerate Grants Program.

Over the duration of the project, Aduro will contribute $382,500, with NSERC and Mitacs contributing a total of $1,147,500. The research project will start next month and is expected to continue for three years.

According to Aduro, the goal of the project is to evaluate the effects of intrinsic and extrinsic contaminants present in plastic feedstocks including food, organic waste, plasticizers, and fillers, under varying conditions to maximize output, quality, and yield. The project also aims to improve pre-and post-processing techniques. “The commercial goal is to be able to develop optimal strategies that will minimize the need for expensive sorting and separation systems for pre-processing treatment,” Aduro officials said in an Oct. 27 news release. “The project is expected to advance and further augment the Hydrochemolytic [HCT] process for chemical recycling of mixed post-consumer industrial and consumer plastics.”

In collaboration with the Aduro research team, the project will be led by Dr. Paul Charpentier, Professor in the Department of Chemical and Biochemical Engineering and Mechanical and Materials Engineering, at Western University along with the support of Dr. Cedric L. Briens, Professor in the Department of Chemical & Biochemical Engineering, and the Director, R&D, at the Institute for Chemicals and Fuels from Alternative Resources (ICFAR) at Western University.

All intellectual property generated from the project will be owned by Aduro Energy Inc., the wholly owned subsidiary of the company.

Founded in 2011, Sarnia, Ont.-based Aduro is a developer of patented water-based molecular recycling technologies that transform waste plastics, heavy crude, and renewable oils into new-era resources and higher value fuels. Originally developed to upgrade heavy oil, Aduro has redirected and reconfigured HCT to upcycle plastics and upgrade renewable oils.