Plastic can be turned into a number of useful products, one of which is Oil.
Converting to oil involves either a Pyrolysis process or Thermodynamic Cracking.
There are a number of companies producing products that work in this field.
Commercial systems
Widely publicised has been Blests machine however there are concerns about the energy balance in this equation as it appears to use 3kWh to produce 1 liter of oil (10kWh energy value), over 3 hours. Thus taking a long time to repay the capital cost of the machine ¥1,060,000 (around US$12,700), even presuming that the cost of collecting and separating the plastic consumed was zero.
Larger systems exist such as Envion which have a high (details?) starting price.
There do not appear yet to be any systems somewhere between table-top size and full-size industrial plants.
Other companies entering this field include:
- Ectomy using Thermodynamic Cracking, but give no other details on the technology.
- GBIsafety, Quality and Experience to Work on Your Next Project.
Open Source or Humanitarian Licenced
There do not appear to be any open-source or humanitarian licensed developments in this area yet.
References
See also
Notes