Montreal, Quebec – Quebec-based Enerkem, a waste-to-biofuels and green chemicals technology company, will jointly form an advanced energy research centre with the City of Edmonton and the Alberta Energy Research Institute (AERI).

The centre will focus on the development and demonstration of novel catalytic conversion processes to produce advanced biofuels and green chemicals from municipal waste, and from non-hazardous industrial waste generated by industrial sectors such as oil and gas, agriculture, and forestry. It will be adjacent to a planned commercial waste-to-biofuels production facility that is ready for construction.

The research centre will include laboratory equipment and a pilot plant, with construction scheduled to be completed in the first quarter of 2010. Enerkem will develop the centre in collaboration with the City of Edmonton, while AERI is contributing $9 million to the project.

The centre is part of a comprehensive waste-to-biofuels initiative between the City of Edmonton, Enerkem, and the government of Alberta through AERI. The initiative also includes the commercial production facility, which will be capable of 36 million litres per year, and a municipal waste processing facility being built by the City of Edmonton. In May 2009, Enerkem announced that the production facility had completed the necessary environmental regulatory process and had been granted a permit to commence construction.