Natural Resources Canada, Par Excellence Development Inc.

Technology Transfer Award

Commercialization Leading to Economic Development

Natural Resources Canada, Par Excellence Development Inc.

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FPTT Technology Transfer Award for the successful development and transfer of the ROBYS™ system, a process to remove contaminants from thermally cracked waste oils.

Michio Ikura, Maria Stanciulescu, Ron Campbell, Roy Prokopuk
Natural Resources Canada, CANMET Energy Technology Centre

Bruce Faiers
Natural Resources Canada, Intellectual Property Office

Donald Kress
Par Excellence Development Inc.

More than fifty-per-cent of the one billion litres of industrial and commercial oil sold each year in Canada is lost, incinerated or dumped into the environment — a sobering statistic since it takes only one litre of oil to contaminate one million litres of water.

Recognizing the environmental and economic advantages to the recovery rather the disposal of used waste oils, Natural Resources Canada researchers at CANMET Energy Technology Centre (CETC) in Ottawa focussed on ways to improve the stability and quality of reprocessing recycled products such as crankcase motor oil and industrial lubricants into marketable diesel fuel.

In particular, the team and its licensee Par Excellence Development Inc. of Sudbury looked for a solution to the severe product quality problems inherent to a recycling process called 'thermal cracking,' a procedure that uses heat to break or 'crack' large oil molecules into smaller diesel fuel molecules.

For years, small and medium used oil-recycling companies had been stymied by the challenges posed by the drawbacks of the process — a malodorous, unstable gas oil contaminated with acidic compounds.

The result of the collaborative effort was a solvent extraction technology called ROBYS™, a process that effectively stabilizes and purifies thermally cracked waste fuels, reducing odours and dramatically increasing their marketability.

The new technology benefits both the waste oil reprocessing industry and the environment. Life cycle studies of the ROBYS™ system reveal fewer greenhouse gas emissions are emitted in the production of diesel fuel derived from waste oil thermal cracking than the conventional diesel fuel production from crude oil. In turn, the technology reduces the amount of waste oil that enters the environment as a pollutant by maximizing the amount collected and recycled.

The first world-scale commercial application of the ROBYS™ process was implemented at a Malaysian waste oil thermal cracking plant capable of processing more than 33 million litres of waste oil a year, the equivalent of more than eight million oil changes for an average family car. Other installations are planned in Belgium, Thailand, China and Libya.

Sponsored by:
Global Royalty Audits, Inc.