World's First 1-Step Method Turns Plastic Into Fuel At 95% Efficiency (interestingengineering.com) 99
A U.S.-China research team has developed the world's first one-step process to convert mixed plastic waste into gasoline and hydrochloric acid with up to 95-99% efficiency, all at room temperature and ambient pressure. InterestingEngineering reports: As the authors put it, "The method supports a circular economy by converting diverse plastic waste into valuable products in a single step." To carry out the conversion, the team combines plastic waste with light isoalkanes, hydrocarbon byproducts available from refinery processes. According to the paper, the process yields "gasoline range" hydrocarbons, mainly molecules with six to 12 carbons, which are the primary component of gasoline. The recovered hydrochloric acid can be safely neutralized and reused as a raw material, potentially displacing several high-temperature, energy-intensive production routes described in the paper. "We present here a strategy for upgrading discarded PVC into chlorine-free fuel range hydrocarbons and [hydrochloric acid] in a single-stage process," the researchers said. Reported conversion efficiencies underscore the potential for real-world use. At 86 degrees Fahrenheit (30 degrees Celsius), the process reached 95 percent conversion for soft PVC pipes and 99 percent for rigid PVC pipes and PVC wires.
In tests that mixed PVC materials with polyolefin waste, the method achieved a 96 percent solid conversion efficiency at 80 degrees Celsius (176 degrees Fahrenheit). The team describes the approach as applicable beyond laboratory-clean samples. "The process is suitable for handling real-world mixed and contaminated PVC and polyolefin waste streams," the paper states. SCMP points to an ECNU social media post citing the study, which characterized the achievement as a first, efficiently converting difficult-to-degrade mixed plastic waste into premium petrol at ambient temperature and pressure in a single step.
In tests that mixed PVC materials with polyolefin waste, the method achieved a 96 percent solid conversion efficiency at 80 degrees Celsius (176 degrees Fahrenheit). The team describes the approach as applicable beyond laboratory-clean samples. "The process is suitable for handling real-world mixed and contaminated PVC and polyolefin waste streams," the paper states. SCMP points to an ECNU social media post citing the study, which characterized the achievement as a first, efficiently converting difficult-to-degrade mixed plastic waste into premium petrol at ambient temperature and pressure in a single step.
Did this just make recycling worth doing? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Did this just make recycling worth doing? (Score:5, Informative)
No, because it only deals with polyvinyl chloride (PVC) which amounts to about 10% of plastic waste.
Near the end of the fine article they point out how this is useful for mixed plastic waste. There's been a problem previously of sorting out PVC that will contaminate other recycling processes with chlorine and so severely impact efficiency. This new process is very efficient, can process PVC as well as other common plastic waste, produces hydrocarbons in the "gasoline range", and produces hydrochloric acid as a byproduct that can be sold as an industrial chemical.
I'm guessing this is a big step to variations on a theme of hydrocarbon synthesis, something that can be adapted for producing carbon neutral fuels for use in the average commuter car and light trucks. I'm thinking this technology can be adapted to process organic polymers found in wood, paper, cotton, and other natural materials from industrial waste, municipal waste, agricultural byproducts, and perhaps more to allow us to close the loop on the carbon we use in our fuels.
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This all sounds great!!!
I know, but some people can't be happy about much of anything.
I"m sure someone will get in there, however and bitch that this won't help promote EV adoption and keep ICE on the roads and somehow lead to the end of mankind......
It's already started, you might just have to scroll down a bit or reload the webpage.
Oops....I'm sure they'd term it "human-kind".....
I haven't seen that yet. Maybe I just need to reload the page.
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> I'm thinking this technology can be adapted to process organic polymers found in wood, paper, cotton, and other natural materials from industrial waste, municipal waste, agricultural byproducts...
The first commercial thermo-depolymerization plant opened in Carthage, MO in 2003. Every day, the plant handled up to 200 tons of unused turkey parts. During the first three months of 2008, plant generated 391,000 gallons of fuel. It was shuttered after local residents complained about the smell.
In the end, CW
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No, because it only deals with polyvinyl chloride (PVC) which amounts to about 10% of plastic waste.
Still better to have that 10% going to a landfill. To get to 100%, or even 50%, you gotta start somewhere. Crazy, I know.
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At least in landfill it means most of the greenhouse gasses are trapped. Turning it into fuel means they will end up in the atmosphere. Also the associated general pollution.
Re: Did this just make recycling worth doing? (Score:3)
Not really because the fuel that would have been produced from the PVC will still be required, itll just come from oil instead. Plus you now have more toxic waste in the ground that will eventually leach into the ecosystem. Burning or converting plastic for fuel is the only sane way to dispose of this material.
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It would be better to recycle the plastic, to sequester it, or to convert it to something that doesn't release those gases but can be used by us in some way.
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Re: Did this just make recycling worth doing? (Score:4, Insightful)
It would be better to recycle the plastic, to sequester it, or to convert it to something that doesn't release those gases but can be used by us in some way.
It would be better if we could get all of our energy needs from magical fairy dust too. But that's not reality. As the person you replied to correctly stated, that fuel will be burned regardless. It can be extracted from the ground and refined, or it can come from plastic that's going to just break down into more microplastic.
Tossing it in a landfill and sealing it off is a temporary solution at best. Eventually whatever material that's being used to seal it away will deteriorate and release it or a natural disaster will. Converting it into something that isn't fuel or that won't decompose into microplastic will likely use even more energy.
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It would be better to recycle the plastic, to sequester it, or to convert it to something that doesn't release those gases but can be used by us in some way.
Nope, it would be worse. Whether it's made into plastic or fuel won't really affect the supply of plastic or fuel. It won't change the price enough to cause more plastic or fuel to be consumed--whichever one it's recycled into will be produced from the earth a bit less. However if people believe plastic can finally be recycled, they will use more plastic. Whereas if they believe it's burned, I think they will neither be encouraged to use more plastics nor to drive more.
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However if people believe plastic can finally be recycled, they will use more plastic.
People already believe that.
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plastic doesn't decompose in any relevant time frame - that's one of it's biggest problems. Creating fossil fuels from it only adds to our clear and present danger of CO2/climate change.
Adding more to that clear and present danger is utter stupidity.
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Did this just make recycling worth doing?
They made incineration worth doing: the key word here is fuel.
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Recycling is taking a used product and turning it into something else useful.
Incineration is burning waste to get rid of it.
Turning plastic into usable gasoline is absolutely recycling.
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> Turning plastic into usable gasoline is absolutely recycling.
Burning converted plastic and making new glass and aluminum containers out old glass and aluminum containers doesn't seem to warrant the same word or do you think it does ?
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That's why somebody invented the terms "circular economy," "infinitely recycleable" and "permanent material."
Lots of materials are not infinitely recyclable. Polymer fibers break down so a few times through and then it's done. That applies to both plastic and paper.
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Recycling is taking a used product and turning it into something else useful.
Incineration is burning waste to get rid of it.
Turning plastic into usable gasoline is absolutely recycling.
Turning plastic into electricity may not be "recycling" but it is still useful. One could generalise further and say the plastic is being turned into energy, whether electricity, heat, or in this case, hydrocarbons. Depening on the prvenance of the plastic, this may well be more efficient in terms of resource input than trying to recover the actual plastic itself to make new plastic things out of.
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Whoops. forgot to close the italic tag properly.
No. (Score:2)
Recycling remains the last option. Especially this form of recycling is a single use. The output of this effort is set on fire and creates carbon emissions. Better options are always Reduce, and Reuse. Recycling is not only last, but recycling plastic into plastic is more "circular".
Calling this "circular economy" is gaslighting. This is only one step removed from simply yeeting plastic into an incinerator.
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Interesting option... (Score:1)
Re: Interesting option... (Score:4, Informative)
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You're going to have to make it more unattractive - releasing toxic compounds doesn't bother most people who still stan for fossil fuels.
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Things like CO2 are technically toxic, but in pretty high concentrations. Their real hazard is remote and hard to grasp for lots of people.
Hot hydrogen chloride gas is a a bit more immediately and obviously toxic. As in, it turns into hydrochloric acid in the air. And in your lungs.
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The main issue if you have PVC in your plastic is that burning it can produce some nasty chlorine compounds in the exhaust. And if you don't have PVC in your plastic - how sure are you that you don't?
The innovative bit here seems to be separating the chlorine out of a PVC mix, leaving only hydrocarbons which can be safely burned.
Re: Interesting option... (Score:2)
Chlorine isnt too much of an issue as theres usually some bacteria that can break down organochlorides. The real problems start when theres fluorine in the mix. You REALLY dont want organoflourides in the enviroment but unfortunately we've been producing these forever chemicals such as PFAs for decades now and nothing in our ecosystem can break them down.
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Re: Interesting option... (Score:2)
Higher incineration temps are the solution to those
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Higher temp = higher energy requirement = higher cost, all of which appear to be the problem this process seems to improve/solve.
Re: Interesting option... (Score:2)
Your car doesnâ(TM)t run on plain plasticâ¦.
Other chemicals that you donâ(TM)t want to burn, but are part of the trash.
But a reason not to even use this technology is that it will release greenhouse gases on the short term after burning the gasoline, while keeping it as plastic wonâ(TM)t.
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But at the same time, it is a complex chemical process. What's wrong with just turning plastic into fuel at 100% efficiency, by incinerating it for power?
Chlorine, that's to stop you. Incineration of PVC is highly toxic and a major environmental concern at plastic waste incineration facilities. If you can extract the chlorine first then it is likely a net benefit to the environment.
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PVC need to be BANNED!
It's the worst plastic! Vinyl included. The plasticizer for PVC is also a huge problem.
The USA stopped the EU from banning it long ago.
Only PVC (Score:1)
Re:Only PVC (Score:5, Insightful)
The first sentence of the fine article points to how this is a process for mixed plastic waste, not just PVC. This is mentioned again later on about the problem of keeping PVC out of plastic waste for recycling as the chlorine in the plastic can contaminate the processes used for plastics other than PVC. Apparently PVC has been so difficult to recycle up to this point that few people bothered, but as PVC is so pervasive in spite of being only 10% of the problem it's been a goal to find a universal process for plastic recycling.
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Thanks. I do wish the article had made it clear that polyolefins include polyethylene and polypropylene, which as I understand it make up the bulk of plastic waste. Ya know, for those of us who aren't organic chemists.
It sounds as though reliably removing PVC from the waste stream makes recycling the rest of the plastics a lot easier and cheaper.
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Plastic waste shortage (Score:2)
It would be funny to see the reactions ... (Score:2)
... if we really do find a way to make plastic use just fine.
I mean, it's hard to turn off decades of religious observance ("plastics baaaaaad!!") just like that.
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The plastic in your sperm and your brain and your fetuses (of which less than 20% become babies) DOES NOT PRODUCE AIR POLLUTION.
Store that carbon in your balls and save the climate! ;-)
Plus it may reduce sperm counts and births which will do far far more good for the climate.
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YES! We need to promote LAND FILLS of plastic. it's the cheapest carbon storage scheme. other trash can make bigger problems but plastic trash only takes up SPACE it doesn't release CO2!
We cared more about property value (short term) than climate change and that is why we must obsess with plastic pollution and put land above air. It doesn't sound right to put land above air does it?
East China Normal University? An old translation? (Score:1)
From the fine article:
The work involves researchers from the US Department of Energyâ"funded Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Columbia University, the Technical University of Munich, and East China Normal University (ECNU), SCMP reports.
I find mention of East China Normal University as a bit odd for a few reasons. First is that with relations with China not being the best it's odd to see the US DOE working with anyone in China on something that could be considered at least adjacent to national security, as in preserving our sources of energy in case of a trade dispute, natural disaster, or something like a declaration of war. Not that we declare wars any more, for some reason that went out of style 80 years ago, we
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Saving my biggest point for last... This is a clear "violation" of the claims I have thrown at me that there could never be an economically viable means to synthesize hydrocarbon fuels.
This is a strange conclusion to make, since you don't know how much the process costs. (Note: literally begging the question).
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This is a strange conclusion to make, since you don't know how much the process costs.
If this was an obviously expensive process then would there be so much excitement about it? I re-read the fine article to be sure and indeed they didn't state explicitly that this was a low cost process. What they did point to were implications of cost savings by removing steps in recycling, no need to provide heat to the chemical reactors, less labor, and how the products of the process are valued commodities.
Are you seeing anything that would imply this is something that costs too much to be useful?
In s
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If this was an obviously expensive process then would there be so much excitement about it?...I find it strange to conclude that there's an obvious flaw that escaped mention
Look at facts, look at what was mentioned. Look at what wasn't mentioned. The article says it has real world potential, it doesn't say it's inexpensive (or even ready for the real world). There's no analysis at all of the drawbacks.
Right now, the CCP is in the process of formulating its next five year plan [www.gov.cn]. Groups are hyping up their accomplishments in order to justify the funding they've been given and ensure continued funding in the future.
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Right now the CCP believes they can produce sustainable aviation fuel, and do so in a volume and price that they believe they can export it for profit.
https://www.chinadaily.com.cn/... [chinadaily.com.cn]
I saw nothing in the fine article that implied this was a technology ready for "the real world" as most every announcement of a new technology will fail to do because rarely is any new technology ready for mass production at a competitive cost immediately after it's discovered and first developed. Rather than look for flaws i
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Claiming that a lack of mention of the costs as an indication of this never becoming commercially viable
I didn't claim that.
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This is a clear "violation" of the claims I have thrown at me that there could never be an economically viable means to synthesize hydrocarbon fuels.
This is not synthesis, it's decomposition into hydrocarbon fuels.
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This is a clear "violation" of the claims I have thrown at me that there could never be an economically viable means to synthesize hydrocarbon fuels. That, so the claims continue, there's so much loss in thermodynamic efficiency to synthesize hydrocarbons that we'd be better off abandoning internal combustion engines and move everything to battery-electric power with the greatest urgency than make any attempts to develop carbon neutral liquid fuels.
It's not clear to me that the process under discussion supports your claim. Any planet-saving activity that starts out with hydrocarbons which we burn, can ONLY work if we find a way to cheaply extract CO2 in huge volumes from the atmosphere. And by definition, the energy to power that process would have to come from low-carbon renewable sources such as solar and wind.
So the "battery-electric power" you sneered at is a sine qua non for the "carbon neutral fuel" you thirst for. Unless, that is, we go nuclear
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If the only problem were global warming/carbon emissions, then I would agree with you. But plastics in the environment are a problem in their own right. So, finding a way to get rid of them benefits the environment a lot in that regard. One might say that plasics 'sequester' carbon, and this process 'releases' carbon dioxide into the atmosphere and is harmful in that regard. So, I dunno, maybe it's an overall win. maybe it isn't.
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Assuming for the moment that nuclear energy is off the table, can you describe a credible scenario in which we might - within two decades or so - achieve large-scale carbon sequestration?
Why would anyone assume nuclear energy is off the table when for the first time since the 1970s there's dozens of nuclear power plants under construction at the same time? If we are to assume that nuclear power is off the table then we can assume that we'd see either growth in use of fossil fuels like we've never seen before in history, or we'd see levels of poverty, disease, and starvation like we've never seen before. We've been "coasting" on nuclear power plants built in the 1970s to hold up a good siz
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I wasn't advocating "abandoning nuclear power", and although I have my reservations about it, I also believe that it might be necessary in order for us to save our sorry asses. You're famous for advocating nukes so I felt a need to advert to that, but I also didn't want to get into litigating that subject in this thread.
Now that you mention it though, I find it very interesting that the word "nuclear" didn't appear once in the post to which I first responded. It strikes me that you were being a little disin
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I don't know what you, or people like you, want from me. If I mention nuclear power then I'm called a "shill". If I leave nuclear power out then I'm lying by omission or something.
Clearly there's a large number of people that believe they have all the answers to solving the world's energy problems, including myself. There's a long story I could tell that got me where I am on this. One way to summarize this is I've been fascinated with electricity to the point I intended to study power electronics at uni
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I apologize if I've made an enemy of you - that was not my intent.
We can restrict ourselves to renewable energy and face energy scarcity to the point our economy reverts to something of a mix of pre-industrial and high tech, which would include reverting to slavery, beasts of burden, and all the human misery that comes with that.
I keep hearing about instances where solar and wind are providing almost all of the power needed for large sections of the grid and for extended periods of time. Except for needing spinning-mass inertia or its electronic equivalent, I have the impression that renewables are poised to take over a very large chunk of power needs currently served by coal, natural gas, and nuclear power. And I expect both efficiencies and yields to improve, and c
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I apologize if I've made an enemy of you - that was not my intent.
I recognize this is a public forum where others can step in at any time to comment, so my intent is to not just answer the comment I'm replying to but to anticipate criticisms and answer those before someone tries to post a "gotcha" reply. I'm a bit tired of the same old bullshit replies on issues like this so I'll "nip it in the bud" as best I can so there's no opening for the same "gotcha" replies that have been outdated since the 1980s. I'm replying to all readers as best I can using quoted remarks as
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Thanks for the detailed, thoughtful, and informative reply. I'm glad you didn't edit it down. Either prior posts of yours that I read didn't put the pieces together as well as what you just wrote or - more likely - I just wasn't open to the idea. This time I feel that I'm coming away with more knowledge and insight, and I'm much less 'on the fence' about needing nuclear plants to save us from ourselves.
Nuclear plants scare me; but I'm realizing that unchecked carbon emissions scare me more. And the level of
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Nuclear plants scare me; but I'm realizing that unchecked carbon emissions scare me more.
That appears to be the trend.
People must prioritize or they get nowhere. After 50 years of trying to replace both fossil fuels and nuclear fission with wind, water, and sun there's a point in which this continued failure to reach that replacement where priorities must shift. It appears two things are dawning on people with a concern on CO2 emissions and the global warming that comes with it. First is that while growth in energy production from renewable energy has been rapid it is not keeping up with gro
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Nobody ever suggested trying solar on the surface of the moon (the nights are too long). You are making things up, which is why people get called shills. Also disingenuous attempts to discredit batteries and electric vehicles even though they can be charged by nukes as well as solar, because you think some requirement that hydrocarbons be synthesized will force nukes to be used.
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Nobody ever suggested trying solar on the surface of the moon (the nights are too long).
If you believe that then you haven't been paying attention.
You are making things up, which is why people get called shills.
So, if I find one example to prove you wrong then will you retract your statement that nobody ever suggested a solar only system as a power source for sustained human habitation on the moon?
Here you go: https://spectrum.ieee.org/moon... [ieee.org]
With so much talk lately of NASA wanting to put a nuclear power plant on the moon its difficult to find the older studies where nuclear power was ruled out as an option. If you have a problem with my example abiove
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Holy crap, I suppose when I said "night is too long" I have to also say "except for the spots on the moon where there is no night" so you could not nitpick your way out of this. Ok, show me a proposal for solar panels IN THE NIGHT. And also the article says: "Astrobotic hasn’t ruled out nuclear—it has partnered with Westinghouse to develop fission reactors for a joint NASA/Department of Energy contract."
And thanks for proving my point with your rant against batteries. You obviously don't actuall
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Engineers Are Working on a Solar Microgrid to Outlast Lunar Nights
https://spectrum.ieee.org/nucl... [ieee.org]
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Link points at "The Unlikely Revival of Nuclear Batteries"
Yes solar panels have been used on landers that shut off during the night. That's not what we are talking about and you know it.
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WTF? This should be the right link.
https://spectrum.ieee.org/engi... [ieee.org]
Another idea for solar power to moon bases.
https://spacenews.com/209742-2... [spacenews.com]
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Reading the rest of the article, the "grid" in the proposal has a radius of 2km, so it is a small circle about the south pole. Apparently this is long enough to reach the permenantly-shadowed craters. It's not some kind of moon-wide grid.
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Why is "nuclear energy off the table"?
But anyway it is pretty obvious that solar and wind have a serious overcapacity problem in order to deal with variation in wind/sun, and it is plausible that this excess energy could be used to sequester CO2. A nuke could also provide energy to do this (most likely not because it was built much larger than necessary, but because demand for electricity varies and it has to be built large enough for the maximum).
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Don't believe anything you read on the Internet. Gasoline synthesis exists and costs about twice as much as digging it out of the ground currently costs. That's generally not "economically viable" unless you take into account the external costs of the dug out of the ground type, or if you've got special requirements. The US Navy is very interested in synthesizi
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This isn't "synthesizing hydrocarbon fuels" the plastic was originally created from hydrocarbon fuels and a lot of the chemical bonds are still there.
I agree that actual synthesis is incredibly inefficient and worthless, unless perhaps you are at war and the enemy has sunk all your refueling tankers, or you are stranded on Mars and need to refill your spaceship. That is the only two cases any proponents have ever come up with where it might be worth it.
What about contaminated plastics? (Score:2)
This is great, but I have serious questions about residual labels left on plastic bottles and other plastic waste. Paper is highly reactive with HCl and could cause contamination or challenges that they didn't mention or explore. Likewise for glue or other binders used with the labels. And remember that the waste is crushed and bailed, so a simple wash won't remove these items.
Re:What about contaminated plastics? (Score:4, Informative)
Having taken a tour of a paper recycling plant I heard mention of a concern on filtering certain plastics out of the recycled paper. The issue is that some plastics and paper have the same density so the usual methods of filtering by centrifuges, dropping it in water or something and skimming what floats to the top, and likely more that wasn't mentioned or I have since forgot. I don't recall if they mentioned what they did about this, other than imply they grin and bear it with product that had contaminants getting fed to the boilers so they could at least get the fuel value out of it.
I had a tour of a place that made engineered lumber, and the left over ends of lumber (with glue on them) was fed into a kind of wood chipper, with the bits of wood about the size of sugar cubes and the sawdust getting vacuumed up and sent to the boilers to be burned. Glue and paper burns without producing toxic chlorine compounds.
If paper will react with the HCl then that sounds like a good thing. I would assume there's means to filter the HCl, dissolved paper, and the "gasoline range" hydrocarbons from each other. It sounds like this is a known process picked up from other de-chlorinating processes, petroleum refining, and plastic production.
If the end product is going to be immediately consumed by fire in a waste-to-energy incinerator then I have doubts they much care about glues and paper in the stream of fuel. The primary issue, at least as I was picking up from the fine article, was getting out the chlorine that could mess up the works and end up producing toxic fumes out of the smokestack. If there's some water, paper, bits of insoluble glue, and perhaps other relatively inert materials, then it's likely to burn up, boil off as harmless vapor, or end up in the ash pile to be used as landfill to level out the land for some new buildings somewhere.
Maybe there is something to be concerned about here that was not mentioned as it was beyond the scope of a short news article for general consumption. There's been people recycling plastics for some time now so I'm thinking this is a solved problem. Well, getting back to my first point this appears to be a mostly solved problem, to where it's a bit of a nuisance than some kind of deal killer like keeping chlorine from recycled plastic waste.
Author confuses straight line for circle (Score:1)
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If you go that broad, then nothing is a circle. Any energy use will leak and not be a closed circle.
Aluminum is a circle if you are reasonable. It takes energy input; it isn't 100% pure so refining it will produce byproducts. Having children is not a circle. if you replace yourself, only on simple terms is it a cycle. since you don't instantly die when the child is born; you have 50+ years overlap. The both of you create a lot of waste output to keep you living... as long as there are maybe 500 million hum
Re: Author confuses straight line for circle (Score:1)
I was using circular purely in the sense economists use it, in other words rather loosely. I guess fundamentally no process is circular (arrow of entropy and all that).
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Does anybody know if this product could be used to make more plastic? That would reduce the CO2 output. Also making plastic does produce waste CO2, so maybe it would be more like crude > CO2+PVC > petrol > CO2+PVC > ...
Great! (Score:1)
The bad part is that they're China and they're lying.
Lack of information.... (Score:2)
Interesting that they had great efficiencies with PVC wire - presumably, at this stage, just the PVC coating on wire.
One of the big hang-ups for recycling wires for the copper has been seperating the copper from the covering, often PVC. There are all kinds of processes for trying to do that economically, but it's still a challenge. Copper doesn't react with HCL, so if they could run this process on a pile of scrap wiring, they should end up with gasoline and copper; a valuable by-product of the recycling.
Does the article *exist* though? (Score:2)
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More stupidity (Score:2)
When combusted this fuel produces the same greenhouse gases as fuel thats come from oil or coal.
Once again these people call themselves scientists, yet they are ignore the most important problem
with combustible fuels. I suppose they think this is a clever way of dealing with plastics waste, yet at the
same time starting new business that cannot exist unless our society is wasteful. Reducing the honus
on individuals and companies to tackle the climate and avoid single use plastics.
Once again more validation th
PLASTIC IS CARBON STORAGE (Score:2)
We look for cheap CO2 storage... but why are we not questioning recycling? It's better to bury that plastic for the 1000s of years; it'll hold that CO2. Sure we shouldn't put it into every living cell on earth but collect and store it; like nuclear waste ...except competently.
Plastics are not seriously recyclable. Most have very limited cycles! Those that can in theory recycle forever like ABS still become degraded at almost every cycle. It's not aluminum, where you can burn off all impurities because it'
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If these hydrocarbons replace other hydrocarbons that are no longer dug out of the ground, this is a net reduction.
Whoo hoo! (Score:2)
Back yard gasoline refineries, here we come!
Promising (Score:2)
room temperature (Score:2)
So, according to this, 80C is room temp?
dissolve (Score:2)
So, as best I can tell, basically the idea is to dissolve the plastic in solvents, whereupon it can be cracked and distilled. Seems that this has been the most obvious thing to do since forever.
light isoalkane (Score:1)
The Ocean Cleanup (Score:2)