RIKEN TECHNOS Collaborates with Other Companies to Begin Full-Scale Development of Dechlorinated Oil Conversion Technologies for Chlorine-containing Waste Plastics

RIKEN TECHNOS CORPORATION (Head Office: Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo; Representative Director, President & CEO: Kazuaki Tokiwa) has collaborated with Assist Inc. and K.cip Co., Ltd. to begin full-scale joint development of dechlorinated oil conversion technologies to obtain recovered oil with extremely low chlorine concentrations through pyrolysis of chlorine-containing waste plastics. The three companies have entered into a joint research and development contract aimed at advancing technologies to reduce chlorine content in recovered oil to 10 ppm or less on a pilot scale.

Our daily lives and economic activities are widely supported by energy and products derived from oil resources, such as naphtha. On the other hand, these resources are susceptible to supply and price fluctuations, making it essential to secure stable supplies and achieve sustainable use. There has been a focus over recent years on the problems of waste plastics and CO₂ emissions, and there has been a growing recognition of the need for carbon neutrality and resource circulation.

Over 70% of waste plastics in Japan undergo thermal recovery, simple incineration, or are used as landfill, so industry, government, and academia have been actively working on research and development to recycle these plastics to reduce fossil fuel use and transition to a circular economy. The issue is that there are many different types of plastic that end up all mixed together in general waste plastics. Although separating the plastics by type is preferable, this makes resource recycling very expensive. A promising option for bulk treatment of such mixed waste plastics is chemical recycling, a technology based on chemical reactions. When recycling waste plastics into oil, chlorine components from PVC and other waste plastics can make it difficult to use the recovered oil as fuel or chemical raw materials. It is therefore important to remove as much of the chlorine components as possible in the recovery process through waste plastic pyrolysis and oil recovery. Research and development of dechlorination technologies has been conducting for some time, but it has yet to reach practical application.

For the past several years, RIKEN TECHNOS has also been working in collaboration with Assist Inc. and K.cip Co., Ltd. to develop dechlorination technologies. On a laboratory scale, we have jointly developed dechlorinated oil conversion technologies using pyrolysis of waste plastic feedstock containing roughly 8 wt% of chlorine to achieve recovered oil with residual chlorine concentration of 10 ppm or less.

These three companies have now entered into a joint research and development contract to accelerate development efforts going forward. Aiming to construct a pilot-scale system by 2027, we are currently in the middle of development and verification to ensure the results of laboratory testing can be reproduced in the real world.

We plan to exhibit the results of our work to date at the Automotive Engineering Exposition 2026 YOKOHAMA, to be held May 27–29 at PACIFICO Yokohama.

RIKEN TECHNOS hopes that beginning development of dechlorinated oil conversion technologies for chlorine-containing waste plastics will help to realize a sustainable society.

Assist Inc.
https://assist.osaka.jp/

K.cip Co., Ltd.
https://k-cip.co.jp/

Automotive Engineering Exposition 2026 YOKOHAMA
https://aee.expo-info.jsae.or.jp/ja/yokohama/