http://www.flixxy.com/convert-plastic-to-oil.htm

1/2/2011 12:20:46 PM

that.is.awesome.

1/2/2011 1:22:21 PM

old, they can do this with tyres as well

1/2/2011 1:25:59 PM

Consider me skeptical. Polymers (plastics) don't "boil" unless you degrade the structure enough to reduce the molecular weight. This takes 250-400C depending on the polymers and can be a very slow process. Mineral oil will volatilize in this temperature range, so I could don't doubt that something like this would be possible under the right circumstances. Perhaps the instrument takes a long time to convert to the oil? I find it hard to think you could do that with just 1 kWh.

Who knows. Sounds nifty if it could work. But scientists have been working on this kind of stuff for decades, designing additives to make biodegradable polymers or creating new polymer systems altogether. I can't imagine they would have gone through all this if you could simply "recycle" them back to oil cheaply with nothing more than a desktop size heating unit.

1/2/2011 1:26:58 PM

that's the rub, the power required to decompose complex materials is often higher than the cost of production.

for tyres they use a modified microwave, breaking down the components of the tyre down.

you can recover these materials from plastic as well, would just have to include a distillation/cracking/fractionating tower/column

1/2/2011 1:38:26 PM

I are tyred.

1/2/2011 2:12:48 PM

I'm le tyred

1/2/2011 2:28:41 PM

tyres?
why do you spell it like that?
serious question. no trolling.

1/2/2011 2:49:59 PM

I'm interested in reading more about this. Its possible to get the plastic to melt and vaporize by decreasing the pressure, so you could decrease the energy needed to heat (though you increase the energy to depressurize blah blah). You see the guy had to screw down the container, so maybe there is something more to it.

I don't see this as a snake oil "run your gasoline car on water!!!" scheme considering the guy actually went to Africa and shit to install these devices.

The other thing is that they don't mention too much about the filtration to convert the oil into gasoline, kerosene, etc

They also claim

Quote :

"And the amazing part is, for 1kg of plastic, you will be able to convert it back into 1litre of oil!"

which is 90-100% conversion. Color me skeptical as well...

Quote :

"Blest’ conversion technology is claimed to be very safe as it uses electric heater with temperature control rather than using flame. You will be able to process polyethylene, polystyrene and polypropylene (numbers 2-4), unfortunately, it still can not convert PET bottles (number 1) back into oil yet. Read more: http://thecoolgadgets.com/blest-company-plastic-to-oil-machine-home-plastic-recycling-made-easy/#ixzz19uc1lZ22"

Reading on their website on experimental data (http://www.blest.co.jp) they cite anywhere from 40% to 93% mass conversion to oil, depending on the type of plastic. Most plastics are around 80%, so this looks more legit.

[Edited on January 2, 2011 at 3:44 PM. Reason : lkj]

Quote :

"Blest Company is a company based in Japan that manufactures a line of machines that recycle plastic and transform it into oil. In a process that uses mainly heat and pressure, the machines take plastic and in a few hours produce unrefined oil, composed of kerosene, diesel, gasoline, and heavy oils. This oil can then be immediately used for industrial machinery, incinerators and other uses where refined gas is not needed. You may think that with such an industrial process, the air around the machine would be very toxic. Impressively, it is not. The machine sends the gas resulting from the process into a gas filter, which breaks it down into H20 and CO2. Hardly any smell escapes. ... Since the oil resulting from the first machine is unrefined, Blest Company also manufactures machines to refine the oil, the BOR-20 and BOR-50, so that it can be used in other applications such as running your car. "

http://buildaroo.com/news/article/a-machine-that-recycles-plastic-into-oil-will-this-become-a-new-solution-to-our-energy-crisis/

Neat. I would be interested to see what they did with pressure and the type of filter used.

[/CHE student]

[Edited on January 2, 2011 at 3:50 PM. Reason : moar]

[Edited on January 2, 2011 at 3:51 PM. Reason : The smallest one costs $9,500, then you have to buy a convertor ]

1/2/2011 3:30:17 PM

"tyre" is how the word is spelled in british english

1/2/2011 4:10:55 PM

Thanks, MisterSmartyPants.

1/2/2011 4:14:56 PM

^ he wasn't being a smartass... someone asked and he answered.

1/2/2011 4:20:42 PM

^I didn't say he was being a smartass. But no one asked what "tyres" meant. Someone asked why Arab13 spelled it that way.

1/2/2011 4:32:21 PM

personal preference, i guess. maybe [somehow] he grew up with that spelling.

i actually think people make a big deal of english/american spellings. they are both official and valid. use what you like, no matter what country you live in.

my k-12 schooling was influenced by the british system, so they used english spellings. that's what i grew up with for 12 years. then i came to the US for 6 years of university. and so i used mostly american spellings there, but actually a mixture.

these days, i tend to use a fairly equal mixture of both, and without any consistency. one day i might type favorite, but another day i might type favourite, just depends on whichever one springs to mind first. since i have used and lived with both, neither one comes to mind first every single time.

/non-rant

1/2/2011 4:38:53 PM

I think I met him once... thought he was a typical american white guy... which is why, I too, would question his British spellings. Or, if he's like me, he is going through an odd phase when, for some reason, he unconsciously uses British spellings... hahaha, I have no British English influences in my life... but I went through this phase.... I have no idea why or how.

1/2/2011 4:54:56 PM

Apparently, Arabs favorite tdub pastime is to go into threads and pronounce the subject matter old, spend 10 minutes google smarting, then posting to the thread again about why the subject matter is old.

1/2/2011 5:16:13 PM

Maybe he just works for BP.

But yeah. Pressurizing would increase the temperature needed to volatilize the oil. I wonder about any additives too. Polymers have all kinds of additives that I wouldn't necessarily want to burn, but maybe those get filtered out.

I just have a hard time believing people haven't done this before, but maybe the goal of the research before has been to naturally degrade the polymers in a landfill, not to have a processing technique.

If it was based on fractionation, I imagine the recovery would be significantly lower. If they remove the smaller oligomeric portions as they fractionate, maybe they wont have time to completely degrade?

I can't say I know everything about polymers, but I know more than most people (not being cocky, I just went to grad school for polymer science and work in a polymer analytical lab). This just seems... off. Maybe I'm just a pessimist. If this is legit though, it'd be nifty.




Oh, also... how much energy does a liter of oil produce? More than 1kWh? Less?

1/2/2011 5:39:35 PM

You're the polymer scientist, you tell us

Quick googling says 1 gallon of crude ~ 40 kwh, or 1 liter ~ 10kwh.

[Edited on January 2, 2011 at 5:48 PM. Reason : .]

1/2/2011 5:47:24 PM

he's african american

1/2/2011 6:37:12 PM

http://ourworld.unu.edu/en/plastic-to-oil-fantastic/

1/2/2011 7:12:20 PM

that is beyond incredible.

1/2/2011 7:42:25 PM

Quote :

""tyre" is how the word is spelled in british english"

no shit lol

Quote :

" But no one asked what "tyres" meant. Someone asked why Arab13 spelled it that way."

this


i understand some circumstances.... maybe you work for a british car company or something. maybe you grew up in europe...maybe you lived there briefly.
or maybe you have a story similar to 0EPII1.
i get that.


but some people don't have any of the above and proceed to spell things differently because it looks cool. (at least thats my assumption)
i kind of equivocate that to naming a girl Kymberleigh instead of Kimberly...

i am in no way saying arab13 did this, but if he did i want to pick his brain.


it's not a bad thing either for those that do it really.....its just a curious concept to me




[Edited on January 2, 2011 at 8:23 PM. Reason : and sorry, it's not really a big deal anyway... yall can ignore me and get back to the topic ]

1/2/2011 8:10:46 PM

[Edited on January 2, 2011 at 8:23 PM. Reason : ?]

1/2/2011 8:14:43 PM

I know it's completely off topic, but I have always spelled it grey. Spellchecker doesn't like it, and it's not intentional... I've just always spelled it that way.

1/2/2011 9:55:24 PM