Transforming Waste Plastic Into $10/Barrel Fuel

Mike writes "Today Washington DC-based company Envion opened a $5 million dollar facility that they claim will be able to efficiently transform plastic waste into a source of oil-like fuel. The technology uses infra-red energy to remove hydrocarbons from plastic without the use of a catalyst, transforming 82% of the original plastic material into fuel. According to Envion, the resulting fuel can then be blended with other components, providing a source for gasoline or diesel at as low as $10 per barrel."

Comments

Re:And In Other News

[proudfoot]

And in other news, a new law was finally passed making it legal to beat fraudsters to death with copies of their SEC filings.

RTFA: This company has already built a facility, and has already landed a contract for the fuel. They are using a well known technology, just with a slightly different take (IR instead of chemical catalysts). This doesn't exactly look like vaporware to me.

Re:Remove Hydrocarbons from Plastic???!!!!

[icebike]

That's what plastic is made of!

The summary left unsaid that it is the removed hydrocarbons that are retained, and the rest discarded.

Then the retained hydrocarbons (82% of the input) is reduced to an "oil product". Tfa linked to rather thin page which explained vary little.

Further digging at environ.com yielded this:

The reactor, a vital component of the unit, utilizes a heating system that converts plastic into oil through low temperature thermal cracking in a vacuum. Using this innovative approach, the Envion Oil Generatorâ produces oil and power safely, efficiently, and economically through an environmentally sensitive process that produces a net gain in energy recaptured.

A single Envion unit is capable of processing up to 10,000 tons of plastic waste annually, producing three to five barrels of refined petroleum product per ton of plastic waste.