South Korea’s oil refiner SK Innovation Co. will develop upcyling technology to produce petrochemical raw material from plastic wastes in cooperation with Jeju Clean Energy.

The company announced Thursday that it signed a contract with Jeju Clean Energy on Tuesday to cooperate in upcycling technology to produce pyrolysis-derived fuel oil from waste plastics.

Pyrolysis is a technology that converts plastics into oil and fuel by heating plastics in the absence of oxygen.

The signing ceremony was held online due to COVID-19.

The company aims to improve the technology to eliminate as many impurities as possible to enhance fuel quality. It plans to use the oil in the refining and petrochemical processing lines of SK Ulsan Complex.

Meanwhile, SK Innovation board chairman Kim Jong-hoon posted an English letter titled “Let us stick it out till we get it over” on its new English website SKinno News on Tuesday. “SK believes that a business, whatever area it may be, flourishes with ideas and that these ideas come from people,” he said in the letter, adding that its in-house university my SUNI that opened earlier this year will provide knowledge to all members of SK.

By Won Ho-sup and Choi Mira

[ⓒ Pulse by Maeil Business Newspaper & mk.co.kr, All rights reserved]