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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."
That just doesn't seem like it will build much of a "facility"
I've been thinking of something like this factory, on a boat equipped with fishing nets processing the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.
Wonder how much oil is in there?
...the key part of TFA for me was:
We'll find out soon whether Envion's process works as well as the company claims --- the $5 million inaugural plastic-to-fuel plant opened today in Washington, DC, and an undisclosed company has already agreed to buy Envion's product to blend into vehicle fuel.
So yes, we'll find out soon, I guess.
Flash point isn't a problem in an inert atmosphere.
Various technologies have been around to do this; the problem has always been scale and water consumption.
Hope these guys get somewhere with the process, and I hope the process is indifferent to the type of plastic involved. The wide variety of plastics used has always been a major problem for plastics recycling.
Of course, you're still left with a nasty sludge - plastic contains non-hydrocarbon chemicals - and this is not a replacement for petroleum since the plastics were made from petroleum to begin with. But! This may make "mining" landfills a more interesting proposition... now you can get methane, various metals (in relatively pure form) AND liquid fuels from old landfills.
=Smidge=
If you heat plastic enough - it decomposes into base hydrocarbons.
I wonder if the process is conducive to using solar heat?
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
what ever happened with that technology?
Thanks to file sharing, I purchase more CDs
Thanks to the RIAA, I buy them used...
$10 + $400 in government subsidies
The sludge would still be mostly hydrocarbons, just heavier stuff. It might be useful for putting into road paving asphalt.
So instead of reusing the plastic, they are burning it off to make oil.... i really don't see how that is good, i'd rather see them separate that plastic to reuse it instead of separating the plastic to burn it off to make oil...
Think of landfills as caches for the future.
The size of landfills are starting to attract attention of the metals recycling industry. There are concerns about reopening these landfills due to poor record keeping in the past; not knowing exactly what is down there.
But the plastic glass and metal will still be there when the econemic conditions are right for mining these places.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
On the envion.com web site, PVC is mentioned as one of the major components of their feed stock. This indeed surprised me, you are right, the chlorine is an issue. If burned it may produce dioxins (very very poisonous stuff), or hydrochloric acid that wreaks havoc on any metal parts it comes in contact with, such as the internals of your engine.
Either they have a way to remove the chlorine later, or they take care of it in another way - this is not mentioned on the web site. At least I couldn't find it. If there is really chlorine in the product then I'd not want to use it at all. And I also doubt it could pass any environmental standards when used in engines due to the dioxin problem.
By your logic, oil refineries also operate on pixie dust.
Luckily, DOW has a full team of imagineers on staff, or this whole oil based economy wouldn't exist.