Man Invents Machine To Convert Plastic Into Oil

reply to post by boondock-saint


So you rather buy your oil and trow away your plastic in nature. I guess everyone is entitled his own defect.

This is not about getting the oil companies to their knees, this is about cleaning up the earth and getting fuel in return at the same time, at LOWER costs as at the gas station.

And about your tractor: 100KG of plastic will deliver 95 liters of straigh usable fuel. With the most simple setup. I guess you just estimated a number based on your born knowledge.

And here is your seawater:





Fresh and Seawater 1KWH ltr/second
There are more ways, but i rest this case as people think in problems.

reply to post by EartOccupant


Plastic can already be efficiently recycled back into more plastic, there is no need to throw it away. Turning it into oil is just a novalty.

reply to post by PheonixOD


Novelty perhaps to some people, but also economically more lucrative.

Ho many processes in factories have a need of cooling their proces?

Now use this heat to turn waste plastic straight into fuel:

Voila, free fuel !

reply to post by EartOccupant


Not really because the oil has to be further processed into some other product ( like more plastic ) . Think about it like this , the amount of oil you get from plastic using this process is going to be less than the amount of of oil it took to make the plastic in the first place. It cant be more lucrative than recyling directly back to a final plastic product.

Plastic is worth more than the oil it took to make it. It has to be or the people who make and sell plastic it wouldnt be able to make a profit

Originally posted by Nurv47
Most of you are missing the point entirely ...

We have all this plastic trash that is buried in the ground, thrown into the ocean, or left in the streets, and we COULD recycle all of it into oil, rather than waste it.

Yet we don't. At least, it doesn't seem that way. Most of it continues to sit there.

Also OP, it appears that this has already been covered, lol ... back in 2010. Hmmm.

A Machine That Turns Plastic Back Into Oil

edit on 12-6-2011 by Nurv47 because: (no reason given)

Well I guess the search option here on ATS is not all it's suppose to be, I searched for this and came up empty so that's why I started this thread.

Another thing, yes it looks like your the only one that caught the message in this thread and video. Star for you.
.

Not all plastics can be recycled. I've seen some of these machines before. One was microwave based. The fact the government is not funding and adopting these on a wide scale is criminal.





I don't care if it's not cost effective. Cleaning and protecting the earth shouldn't have to be a profit motive.

Not all plastics can be fed into this machine either. Only polyethylene, polystyrene and polypropylene — PP, PE, PS plastics can be used or it produces a highly toxic waste. The guy in the video makes it look like he is randomly just stuffing in any old bit of plastic out of someones trash but in reality he hes carfully sellected / pre sorted those items .Also methane, ethane, propane and butane gasses are released in the process so the machine has to be used in a filtered environment. Some people have suggested collecting and using these gasses but the process would require more complex equipment ,is very difficult and somewhat expensive. If you want to clean up the world fine , go for it . But turning plastic back into low grade oil (which you would need a hell of a lot of to make anything like fuel ) is a waste of money when the same stuff can be turned back into usable plastic.


"Basically, the math worked out as follows:
Perfect efficiency of the system = 47% return net of energy consumed in the process

This number is based upon data from Envion's website of 62% yield and applying a "perfect" energy consumption of 25%. (The consensus was that 50% consumption was a more realistic target, which would mean 31% return net of energy consumed in the process.)

So, basically, you get 31-47% "oil" for each equivalent ton of plastic waste. This is where the "but it's waste, so it's free" argument rears its ugly head. "Free" is a misnomer, as someone has to be paid to sort/clean the plastic. Then someone has to transport the plastic (or the machine, if the case may be).

Basically, any "net negative" carbon production is off-set by the energy expended to produce the oil. Then, the oil still gets used for something, so the CO2 that was supposedly removed is put right back into the system upon consumption.

The technology is a bit of science and a WHOLE LOT of marketing. The claim of 1L of synthetic oil for 1kg of plastic is gross production, not net. 1L of petroleum equates to 0.88Kg, so 12% is released somewhere as a leach bi-product. This doesn't account for the $0.10/L "cost" of production. (Here I used the most efficient price, as opposed to the 20c cited elsewhere.) So, if it cost $0.10/L in energy consumption, that would equal to $15.90 per barrel equivalent to produce (16 Oct $70.94 - US DOE world basket price of light sweet crude barrel, for comparison). Of course, this doesn't account for the fact that the "oil" isn't refined (as someone else pointed out). So, basically, we get "dirty" oil (low in sulfur, but containing BPA) for $15.90-$31.80 (depending on whose numbers are used) per barrel in 2009 Oct prices. To keep things consistent, this works out to $0.2241-$0.4482 per $1 priced in light sweet crude.

That number accounts only for the energy consumed in the process, with assumption of $0 allocated to transportation. In order to off-set the $12,700 price tag of the unit, one would need to produce 16,368 litres of "oil" to break-even. (Again, this doesn't yield consumable product... just unrefined light-medium crude equivalent.) Assuming you had the 18,600 Kg of plastic to convert, that is. It was never made clear how long it takes to convert the Kg of plastic, but someone mentioned 3 Kw consumed. Based upon 1KwH energy consumption of the machine, that would mean 55,800 hours of use would be needed to break even on cost using the portable device... roughly 193.75 months of continuous use. So, assuming the average individual were willing to devote time to run the machine four times per day (once when just waking up, once on break from work for lunch, once when returning home and once more just before bed), that works out to 96.875 YEARS of using the machine before the net expenses are $0. Of course, the machine will likely break long before that number is ever reached."

Im all for cleaning up the world but do it in a way that brings back the most money or poor countries wont be able to afford to do it. Just saying "this can make fuel" is a sign ignorance. Plastic can already be recycled back into plastic which is worth more than the oil that it took to create it , so lets get to it. There is no excuse for the way the world is being treated.

reply to post by PheonixOD



Don't you guys read what i write?

1. It takes a SIMPLE setup
2. You use other peoples WASTE
3. 100kg suitable plastic returns 95 liter direct usable liquid fuel ! (No further refinement necessary)
4. Besides the liquid fuel, the process also creates direct usable gas. ( methane, ethane, propane and butane gasses are released; wich can be used to loop the system and lower the costs even more)

reply to post by PheonixOD


I see you have done some math after my post.

Ýou think way to difficult IMHO.

Math is nice, now some real stuff:



You keep forgetting the resource (plastic waste) is free, it's everywhere. In a lot of places already collected by garbage collectors. Instead of paying for deposal, you can use it as free resource.

The only cost is some drums and piping once and heat.

How to get heat?
- Electrical
- Sun
- Waste heat from other processes
- The process itself also delivers flammable gas vapors that can be looped to reduce the heat input.

Originally posted by blackrain17
I like it!!!! Another good idea by them Japanese. But the big oil companies will come up with some propaganda about this machine not being safe or the oil it produces not being safe. Or just have that machine banned by passing some law...

edit on 12-6-2011 by blackrain17 because: (no reason given)

You bet!!! No way are "they" going to tolerate this kind of genius destabilising of their liquid gold currency and power grid and monopoly!

I heard about this invention some time back! The Japanese people are very innovative. Still feel so sad that they have had to suffer the intoxication of radiation in some of their regions. Just hope and pray they get to live and fight another day as they have a great contribution to offer humanity in the future as we will be forced, because of the poisoning of the environment by current energy and agricultural practices, to change and develop less toxic and more environmentally balanced approaches to our material needs upon this earth.

That is not a simple or safe setup , also because this isnt professionaly refined diesel any engine using it would have to be modified ( making it preactically usless ). Also you are forgetting about the tax, you need to pay both state and federal "road" tax in the US. Almost every country will require some kind of fuel tax compensation. Fuel is cheap , the tax ontop of it is expensive. I think legaly you would need someone with at least a degree in chemistry to oversee the entire project on a daily basis.

Any way you look at it , its more economicaly viable to convert old plastic back into reusable plastic than into oil that is worth less than the plastic. The maths has proved that already.

Superb idea ,and look how they can do it on a much bigger scale .

reply to post by PheonixOD


It is not i don't understand your points, i do. I just have a different take on it.

Taxation and regulation is a problem yes, but that is a problem for all "free" energy. So throwing that in, we can end all debates on free or cheap energy.

About the simplicity: What is not simple about one drum a few pipes and two collecting vessels?


About the safety: It's not rocket science, but indeed you need some knowledge about pressure, and burn process. But one afternoon collecting info about that would for an average person be enough to understand it.

About the end-product: It is direct usable as diesel fuel. If you want a more cleaner product,just repeat the process with the fluid instead of the plastic.

But al those are technical things, the main thing is about the mindset, re-use waste products and instead of paying for garbage deposit, let the garbage disposal pay you.

PS.

The same setup with some minor adjustments could also double function as a wood gasifier, but that is a different subject.

reply to post by EartOccupant

I agree with you Ertoccupant "the main thing is about the mindset, re-use waste products and instead of paying for garbage deposit, let the garbage disposal pay you. " . I guess we can argue all day about the best way to do it. The important thing is that we at least do something about the mess we currently find ourselfs in.

reply to post by PheonixOD


I second that!

I think this technology, in terms of recycling, is simple, and therefore amazing. I can see there being Health and Safety issues that would make it difficult to receive licensing for, and this will further be exacerbated by an availability of those with suitable experience to install and train people to use such a device...but, all that aside...these are things that can be overcome, given enough enthusiasm...

One thought, how clean does the plastic have to be before it can be put into the device? Can plastic that has been contaminated by mud, paper, various liquids etc be put into it without any treatment? I believe that that is currently one of the primary costs in plastics recycling, the pre-recycling cleaning...both in terms of energy and human resources...

reply to post by Pythein


it does not have to be clean, but you have to understand that when you put in things polluted with other chemicals it could be dangerous, but sand or dirt is not a problem.
The process "delivers" three things:

- liquid Fuel
- Flammable vapors
- Slack ( The stuff that not vaporized )

For those really interested here is a forum with people making, debating and refining the process:

Make your own diesel from plastic

Here is a nice quote from the forum:

We made calculations, it turns out that our device, as crude as it is with much room for improvement, can produce diesel fuel at a cost of 17 US cents a liter, that is when only plastic and electricity is considered. The next machine will probably use a liquid fuel burner to heat the reactor, this could lower the costs even more as it would then run on a small percentage of the produced fuel and also the produced gas would then be used more practically - burned along with the fuel to heat the reactor. Even now, if we would get the electricity from a diesel generator that runs on the produced fuel, it would consume about 20% of the produced fuel, but those generators are never efficient and much of the potential power is lost, so heating the reactor using a burner should be even more efficient. Japan produces such units that run themselves using the produced fuel, their machines use 7-10% of the yield. But they cost more than 100 000$ for a unit the size we have. We also calculated all the materials and work involved to make this device and it comes around 1200$, but it is scalable from table top units up to industrial size units that produce several tons of fuel daily.

reply to post by EartOccupant


Thanks for that, so if the bottles were left to stand in cold water to disperse some of the contaminants and remove paper etc, that would be sufficient it seems...compared to current recycling practices which involve heated water cleaning...looking good so far....

I would really like to see this technology employed by aid agencies and NGOs in developing countries where they have been deluged with Western plastic disposables and are now drowning in the waste due to no system being in place to cope with it. Not only would it help allieviate the impending environmental disaster, but it would give those communities the power to sort the problem out themselves, and gain an income from it.

like he said near the end, ''if the whole world were to start doing this''. Problem is they wont and we will never see the benefits of this invention. However, it does seem remarkably easy to do, could we ourselves perhaps just make a machine that melts plastic and using a tube, put it through water and collect the oil? i dont know how to make it into petrol or that, but i am sure it would be possible

reply to post by PheonixOD


You are very short sighted. These machines are in their absolute infancy and can be developed much further. Your negativity is a senseless position to take. The world is crying out for these concepts to become a reality.