Turning PLASTIC back into oil

Not quite Daiquiri, the champion is Holland, but Italy is the runner up.

An extremely interesting thread, would the principle also work for thermo-hardening plastics like polyester? Worth an experiment.

 

This is the company site (english page): http://www.blest.co.jp/seihin-english.html
It reads "Recyclable plastics are polypropylene (PP), polyethylene (PE) and polystyrene (PS)"

 

That's what I already feared: these are various hydrocarbons.
Polyester has a lot of oxygen in the molecules, heating it in a closed vessel may have surprising results.

 

Yeah great PR.........

Nothing new, nothing was invented, not even developed. All old hats.

He just uses a pressurized uncontrolled depolymerisation. And the result is unpredictable in its properties.

The "pressureless catalytic depolymerisation" which I mentioned here several times now, is much more efficient, less costly and produces (due to the right catalyst) just plain Diesel fuel of the highest quality.

But as always it has other disadvantages. The raw material needs to be shred, for example.

http://www.boatdesign.net/forums/bo...as-people-transporter-24214-7.html#post397215
http://www.boatdesign.net/forums/bo...t-pacific-garbage-patch-30064.html#post314623
http://www.boatdesign.net/forums/powerboats/diesel-boat-heaters-32402-7.html#post362500
http://www.boatdesign.net/forums/hybrid/getting-out-box-hot-air-34459.html#post394766
http://www.boatdesign.net/forums/bo...and-floating-platform-30051-2.html#post313507

and so on....

These systems can be made to any size of course, but it is not very sensible to have a apparatus costing 12k $$$ and processing 0,8 ltr of unrefined (useless) fuel in two hours, while consuming the enrgy content of 1 ltr Diesel.

Having a plant of 14 mio $$$, and producing many tons a day, while consuming only 5% of the processed Diesel, that makes sense. (and profit)

And that is exactly what the Axiom Energy company* and the inventor Koch in Germany sell at present (and since ten years)
*mentioned by Brian


Regards
Richard

 

Interesting stuff about the chemistry involved and the problem of working this system with insufficient heat. There's a lot of really ugly compounds that can be released if done incorrectly I gotta wonder if that's not what happened to the other folks who developed similar systems.

I like it, but I think you would have to flash the plastic in a preheated compartment rather than let them be subjected to less than optimal temps for any length of time.

 

And what happened with Axiom Energy?
Did they succeed in collecting the funds and actually built the installation? All web pages I found referred to the plans in 2005, no plant being built, test results, commercial figures etc.

 

Think Your Plastic is Being Recycled, Think Again?

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/09/18/1239747/-Think-your-plastic-is-being-recycled-Think-again?


Think those plastic items you carefully separate from the rest of your trash are being responsibly recycled? Think again. U.S. recycling companies have largely stayed away from recycling plastic and most of it has been shipped to China where it can be processed cheaper. Not anymore. This year China announced a Green Fence Policy, prohibiting much of the plastic recycling they once imported:

For many environmentally conscious Americans, there’s a deep satisfaction to chucking anything and everything plasticky into the recycling bin—from shampoo bottles to butter tubs—the types of plastics in the plastic categories #3 through #7. Little do they know that, even if their local trash collector says it recycles that waste, they might as well be chucking those plastics in the trash bin.

“[Plastics] 3-7 are absolutely going to a landfill—[China's] not taking that any more… because of Green Fence,” David Kaplan, CEO of Maine Plastics, a post-industrial recycler, tells Quartz. “This will continue until we can do it in the United States economically.”

U.S. recyclers are scrambling to come up with a solution now that China is drastically cutting back on their top import from the U.S.:

China's demand for low-cost recycled raw materials has meant waste shipments from Europe, the US, Japan and Hong Kong have arrived thick and fast, with scrap becoming the top US export to China by value ($11.3bn) in 2011.

China controls a large portion of the recycling market, importing about 70% of the world's 500m tonnes of electronic waste and 12m tonnes of plastic waste each year. Sudden Chinese policy changes therefore have a significant impact on the global recycling trade, which puts pressure on western countries to reconsider their reliance on the cost-effective practice of exporting waste, a habit that's reinforced by a lack of domestic recycling infrastructure and a lower demand for secondary raw materials.

China's Green Fence policy just might spur the U.S. government and recyclers into much-needed innovation:

Historically, higher labor costs and environmental safety standards made processing scrap into raw materials much more expensive in the US than in China. So the US never developed much capacity or technology to sort and process harder-to-break down plastics like #3 through #7.
Green Fence might be a chance to change that, says Mike Biddle, CEO of California-based recycling company MBA Polymers. “China’s Green Fence offers a real opportunity to the US government and recycling industry to step up its efforts on recycling and catalyze a strong domestic recycling market in the US,” Biddle said at a recent webinar on Green Fence.

Some U.S. recycling companies are applauding the news:

The policy also has leveled the playing field by allowing large-scale companies that have invested additional money in pollution control and recycling services to operate at a more equal and fair-cost level, according to Kathy Xuan, CEO of full-service recycler Parc Corp. of Romeoville, Ill.
With China taking a harder look at the plastic waste it imports, U.S.-based recyclers are looking for opportunities in the changing global market.

Parc has doubled production in the last six months, Xuan said in a July 2 webinar hosted by the Society of the Plastics Industry Inc. of Washington.

The opportunity for big change (and big profits) is there. Let's hope the U.S. government and recycling companies don't throw away the opportunity to lead the way.


Perhaps its time to look at that solution,....turning it back into oil...

 

I think the best thing is to simply burn plastic trash and get the heat energy from it to run boilers. Better than filling up land with plastic trash. Turning back into oil simply a waste of energy. It is an oil product so burn it as is.

Of course due to whiney green weenies nothing like that will be allowed, even if the smoke can be cleaned up. I think they would prefer plastic to stay in the landfill rather that turned into co2.

 

Turning Plastics into Hydrogen

Possible Solution !?

California trash-to-hydrogen plant promises dirt-cheap, super-green H2 https://newatlas.com/energy/sgh2-cheap-green-hydrogen-california/

...just an excerpt....
How it works
The process, developed by SGH2's parent company Solena, uses high-temperature plasma torches putting out temperatures between 3,500 and 4,000 °C (6,332 to 7,232 °F). This ionic heat, with oxygen-enriched gas fed in, catalyzes a "complete molecular dissociation of all hydrocarbons" in whatever fuel you've fed in, and as it rises and begins to cool, it forms "a very high quality, hydrogen-rich bio-syngas free of tar, soot and heavy metals."

The process accepts a wide variety of waste sources, including paper, old tires, textiles, and notably plastics, which it can handle very efficiently without toxic by-products. The bio-syngas exits the top of a plenum chamber, and is sent to a cooling chamber, followed by a pair of acid scrubbers to remove particulate matter.