A Machine That Turns Plastic Back Into Oil

Originally posted by yellowcard

People are inventing stuff all the time that isn't tied to the military

Usually projects like these fail, because while they are cool, they aren't cost effective...and are thus worthless to humanity and investors.

[edit on 23-8-2010 by yellowcard]

If our government would have hammered out an energy policy back in the 70's we might have been off fossil fuels by now. It's up to our government to subsidize research for corporations to take these ideas and make them more cost effective. The problem is, our government is a lap dog for the oil industry. Our government has to stop paying lip service about how foreign oil is a threat to the U.S. and start doing something about it!

Until we can see the true EROEI (Energy Return on Energy Invested) on this system any debate over whether this is good or bad is pointless.

Does he know what kind of money machine he just made i want one of the machines so I can get FREE gas lol.

reply to post by TheOracle


I love it.. Good post.

Originally posted by xxcalbier
perpetual motion has been dis-proven so many times .No numbers I could give you would make you believe it is not possible to get more energy out of a system then you put into it.
Any more then I could ever convince you Obama Is NOT a alien reptile over lord.

This is not a perpetual motion device. It is distinctly different from a device which, for instance, uses energy to convert water into hydrogen and oxygen.

The potential energy in the final product comes from the potential energy that already existed before the oil was made into plastic. There is no free lunch here. Forming the polymers to make plastics uses energy as does breaking down the polymers. The advantage is that waste plastic would otherwise be burned or buried in a landfill (wasting all its potential energy). It is a pretty big advantage to be able to reclaim some of the energy which would otherwise be wasted.

This should obviously only be used on plastics which were not going to be recycled into other plastics anyway (there is a lot of it in landfills etc).

It is unfortunate that the article didn't specify how much energy was required to produce one liter of oil, other than uselessly stating 1kW. This means nothing without duration. That one liter of oil (using the gasoline component) could produce 300kW in a V8 engine or 200kW in a V6. The V6 would just produce it for longer.

I would however, be very, very surprised if it took anything near half a liter of oil worth of energy to boil the kilogram of plastic. I distill my drinking water and it uses next to no electricity for a four liter batch (about 4c to keep it at a boil for several hours). In comparison, one liter of gasoline will get a fairly large modern V8 car about seven miles or more.

As CO2 caused global warming is a scam, the only big problems with fossil fuels are smog and running out of them. This helps with one of those problems. It could also help stop petrol prices being artificially increased so dramatically, as people would just convert plastic instead.

Originally posted by sligtlyskeptical
The real issue is folks not disposing of their plastic properly.

Most people only do things if it directly benefits them. Widespread implementation of this device would mean the masses view their used plastic as valuable fuel rather than worthless rubbish.

I cannot see a better incentive to not have plastic end up in a landfill or needlessly burned off.



[edit on 24-8-2010 by Azp420]

This is what the world needs... but I'm skeptical of this.

Plastics are made from certain fractions of oil distillates. Different fractions are different solvents and different materials.

Liquid fuels fall into the solvents category. Plastics don't contain solvents. If you don't believe that try dumping some gasoline into styrofoam or a 2 liter bottle.

The first thing I wondered when I saw the headline was how much of what kind of solvents are they using to make this 'oil'? 'Oil' is a very subjective term... it's more of a phrase than it is a specific thing (i.e. mineral oil).

When you melt those plastics, you'd need solvents to clean it out of there.

Not all plastic polymers originally derived from oil can even be harmed by solvents, for perspective.

At best, I doubt there's one single ideal temperature to attempt to 'vaporize' every type of plastic out there, thru that 'water bong'!

[edit on 24-8-2010 by IgnoranceIsntBlisss]

reply to post by TattarrattaT

With widespread Generation IV nuclear technology implementation the energy on return, assuming this thing is even real, could be a non-issue.

Originally posted by TheRedneck
Actually, if the reaction from the heating produces the right components, the device appears to use fractional distillation to turn the components into gasoline, diesel, and kerosene directly. Fractional distillation is what produces these fuels form oil in the first place.

Exactly... the problem is gasoline, diesel and kerosene have to be abundant in the plastics for this to even be realistic. Last I checked benzene's evaporate into thin air, but before they do they can be used to melt plastics.

[edit on 24-8-2010 by IgnoranceIsntBlisss]

reply to post by IgnoranceIsntBlisss


Can you explain this please?

Montgomery County Waste Transfer Station:
Envion Oil Generator turns plastic waste into oil

The EOG can be fed almost any petroleum-based waste plastic and will convert it into synthetic light to medium oil for less than USD$10 per barrel. As with crude oil, the synthetic oil can then be processed into commercial fuels or even back into plastic.

[edit on 24-8-2010 by soficrow]

My first thought when I started to read this thread was WOW !!!

However, this story is not new at all.

For instance... using a giant microwave some guys managed to convert 9.1 kilograms of ground-up tires through the Hawk-10 produces 4.54 litres of diesel oil, 1.42 cubic metres of combustible gas, 1 kg of steel and 3.40 kg of carbon black - check it on this 2007 NewScientist article.

Also, another company claim to be able to obtain 775 litres of crude oil for every ton of typical plastic waste processed - check it at www.polymerenergy.com...

I suddenly start feeling sad because it is clear people just want to ignore the already known facts. It is more convenient to keep oil prices high. Just imagine we could convert 10% of all plastic waste or at list 1% of the trillion tones of old tires into millions of "free" oil.


[edit on 02/11/2008 by novrod]

reply to post by soficrow


I can answer that from memory:
Light crude:
75% VOC's (benzenes, paint thinners)
20 Waxes
3% Asphaltenes

I hope plastics don't contain asphaltenes.

[edit on 24-8-2010 by IgnoranceIsntBlisss]

Originally posted by IgnoranceIsntBlisss
reply to post by soficrow

 

I can answer that from memory:
Light crude:
75% VOC's (benzenes, paint thinners)
20 Waxes
3% Asphaltenes

I hope plastics don't contain asphaltenes.

[edit on 24-8-2010 by IgnoranceIsntBlisss]

Not the answer I wanted!!!

...Seems you were saying it's not doable - I linked to a large scale plant doing it - asked for explanation - got breakdown, no explanation.

Just go to the polymerenergy.com website.

reply to post by soficrow

Kilowatt is not an amount of energy, it's the rate at which energy is used. How much energy does it actually require to convert? And how much does it actually cost? If I recall correctly, 10% of all oil is used in plastics, if this works, then we could significantly lower oil demand by recycling waste that has already accumulated.

[edit on 24/8/2010 by C0bzz]

Originally posted by C0bzz
...How much energy does it actually require to convert? And how much does it actually cost?

...the conversion from plastic to oil costs less than USD$10 per barrel:

Envion Oil Generator turns plastic waste into oil

The EOG can be fed almost any petroleum-based waste plastic and will convert it into synthetic light to medium oil for less than USD$10 per barrel. As with crude oil, the synthetic oil can then be processed into commercial fuels or even back into plastic.

...so the question is "how much does the processing into fuel or plastic cost? ...and is it more than non-synthetic oil costs?"

Wouldn't it be more cost effective and better for the enviroment if we just stopped using so much plastic. This is just a bandaid to a much bigger problem.

Energy and polution used getting oil.
Energy and polution moving oil
Energy and polution refining oil.
Energy and polution moving petroleum to place that makes plastic.
Energy and polution used distibuting plastics.
Energy and polution used gathering used plastics
Energy and polution used changing plastic back to oil.
Energy and polution used in refining plastic oil
Energy and polution moving that refined plastic oil.

IMO we would do better if we avoided buying and using plastics. We need some, stop buying bottled water and drinks. Maybe we should focus on companies using less plastics.

I think the lazyness of people to make good choices is why we now live in a garbage dump.

Originally posted by TheRedneck

I have put this idea in my queue, right behind the other fourty-eleven-dozen items to check out. Maybe someday I'll actually get to it, if I don't die first or no one else does it before then.

That was a hint. We need more hands-on experimenters on here, guys.

TheRedneck

Hi there TheRedneck

If you had two or three more guys like you and a lab to shoot in, I would donate you some open source technology to play with.

Originally posted by sensible thought
Wouldn't it be more cost effective and better for the enviroment if we just stopped using so much plastic. This is just a bandaid to a much bigger problem.

Energy and polution used getting oil.
Energy and polution moving oil
Energy and polution refining oil.
Energy and polution moving petroleum to place that makes plastic.
Energy and polution used distibuting plastics.
Energy and polution used gathering used plastics
Energy and polution used changing plastic back to oil.
Energy and polution used in refining plastic oil
Energy and polution moving that refined plastic oil.

IMO we would do better if we avoided buying and using plastics. We need some, stop buying bottled water and drinks. Maybe we should focus on companies using less plastics.

I think the lazyness of people to make good choices is why we now live in a garbage dump.

What should we use in place of plastic? It's light, cheap, durable, and easy to make.

I think using plastic is fine as long as we can recover the majority of material upon recycling.

There is a US company that has a machine that does that but also does tires, oil shale, garbage etc on a much larger scale. Worth checking out
//www.globalresourcecorp.com/[/url]

Originally posted by yellowcard
You have to remember that this won't be "real" oil like lt sweet crude, it will be a byproduct of oil, which is still oil but very very heavy crude. You would not be able to burn it for fuel...in fact it's basically just recycling it back into plastic...which we can already do.

With mild refinement a diesel engine (think landrover) could quite easily burn this in the engine with a dash of white spirit for added combustion.
I know this because I've fueled my engine with (filtered) engine oil which is practically the same as crude oil
You'd still need some diesel fuel for a mix of about 50/50 but it could be done

Too bad a large corporation is going to buy this patent, lock everything about it in a safe and never let this be known to the general public.