Japanese Man Makes Plastic into Oil

[olicon]

Erm not really? I learnt this in 11th grade (or year ten). Plastics are made from hydrocarbons that also make up oil, except they are all more complicated in the plastics. Seeing as you can brake larger hydrocarbons into smaller onces it isnt that amazing. This man has just turned theory into practice. The concept has been around for YONKS but the actuall invention is here now.

It's also pretty damn hard in practice. This kinda thing generally takes a lot of energy. If thermodynamics and physical chemistry holds true, it takes more energy to do it than you'll gain from the oil. (Of course if you use free energy like solar/wind, then it's a net energy gain). Biologically, it's also pretty damn tricky to do, as natural microbes do not really "detect" plastic.
Altering just 1 bond in a molecule is an extremely arduous task. People spend decades and decades to achieve it.

Then again, it's like cold fusion. The principal is ever so simple. But in practice..it's nearly impossible (and won't be possible for the next few decades, if ever).

People have been turning the stuff plastic is made of to usable fuel for ages also via breaking down larger hydro carbons. Its just we couldnt turn the plastic back into the stuff its made of again so we could turn THAT into oil. Thats what this man has invented. The reverse process. Its very impressive but he is as they say "standing on the shoulders of giants". He filled in the last gap to make the process possible.

Theoretically it's not that hard. Practically, it's extremely difficult.
PVC is not PE is not PP, etc. Each plastic may be made of hydrocarbon, but they are all arranged in different ways, and they are all bonded to very different molecules. They all have different density, and they all have different length (hence molecular weight). While clearly they are similar, they melt at different temperature, and it will take different energy to break them up. As you know, rate of energy inject makes a lot of differences (2 min at 50c is not the same as 1 minute at 100c). But yes, I do agree--it's apparently possible. Commercially viable? I can't tell from this video alone. But it's going to be hard, because you are putting in non-uniform material, unlike crude oil (which differ from sources to sources, but are all quite similar).

I wonder what happened to all the waste. The hydrocarbon chains are bonded into more things, and there are dyes and other additives in there as well. Do they all get turned into gas? Are they taken out in processes down the chain?

No, that's not really true. The concept is really very simple, although it is admittedly difficult to do in practice. It's so difficult in fact, that the gains from the process don't compensate for the effort and energy put in.

So, it's not remarkable that he has figured out a way to make it not nearly as difficult, and definitely worth the effort and energy?

Well, alright, if you say so. (Not really.)

I can't see if the machine requires any catalyst. But if it's only energy we're after, then we have an abundance of it shining down on us every morning. Just build a mofo rail line (solar powered, of course), out into the nearest desert, and transport the plastic out over there to be processed using more solar/wind (well..wind power probably doesn't work well in the desert. Sand doesn't play nice with bearings) energy. It'll become almost a free operation, bar maintenance and wages, of course.

 

[crimson5pheonix]

And impractical. Why would anyone want to do this?

Well, first of all, pay attention to what is said in the video.

Summary:

1. Reduce the amount of trash around, in landfills and etc.

2. Help with carbon dioxide emissions.

3. Allowing us to recycle some oil now, when before it was impossible.

1. Okay, that's kinda useful.

2. No, no it wouldn't. In fact a process like this would just add more CO[sub]2[/sub]. Not that I care.

3. Temporarily.

 

[Daughterofether]

HMMM you want to sacrifice a quite, quite large energy input to turn plastic into a smaller amount (youre lying if you claim you can do this and not lose at least some volatiles) of feed stock, of less uniform composition than what went into making the plastic in the first place. capable of being burnt for less than a tenth of the energy it took to get it...

sorry why not just recycle the plastic normally? it would result in more usable material at a lower energy cost...

 

[BiscuitTrouser]

Erm not really? I learnt this in 11th grade (or year ten). Plastics are made from hydrocarbons that also make up oil, except they are all more complicated in the plastics. Seeing as you can brake larger hydrocarbons into smaller onces it isnt that amazing. This man has just turned theory into practice. The concept has been around for YONKS but the actuall invention is here now.

It's also pretty damn hard in practice. This kinda thing generally takes a lot of energy. If thermodynamics and physical chemistry holds true, it takes more energy to do it than you'll gain from the oil. (Of course if you use free energy like solar/wind, then it's a net energy gain). Biologically, it's also pretty damn tricky to do, as natural microbes do not really "detect" plastic.
Altering just 1 bond in a molecule is an extremely arduous task. People spend decades and decades to achieve it.

Then again, it's like cold fusion. The principal is ever so simple. But in practice..it's nearly impossible (and won't be possible for the next few decades, if ever).

People have been turning the stuff plastic is made of to usable fuel for ages also via breaking down larger hydro carbons. Its just we couldnt turn the plastic back into the stuff its made of again so we could turn THAT into oil. Thats what this man has invented. The reverse process. Its very impressive but he is as they say "standing on the shoulders of giants". He filled in the last gap to make the process possible.

Theoretically it's not that hard. Practically, it's extremely difficult.
PVC is not PE is not PP, etc. Each plastic may be made of hydrocarbon, but they are all arranged in different ways, and they are all bonded to very different molecules. They all have different density, and they all have different length (hence molecular weight). While clearly they are similar, they melt at different temperature, and it will take different energy to break them up. As you know, rate of energy inject makes a lot of differences (2 min at 50c is not the same as 1 minute at 100c). But yes, I do agree--it's apparently possible. Commercially viable? I can't tell from this video alone. But it's going to be hard, because you are putting in non-uniform material, unlike crude oil (which differ from sources to sources, but are all quite similar).

I wonder what happened to all the waste. The hydrocarbon chains are bonded into more things, and there are dyes and other additives in there as well. Do they all get turned into gas? Are they taken out in processes down the chain?

At any rate..amazing.

Absolutely! The amount of landfill we can remove, previously taking thousands of years to decay or producing harmfull gasses when burned, now turned into FUEL! This invention can change the world. What i meant is the advance was rather small, little steps toward the goal, but now we reached a brake through. This needs to be worldwide asap. Imagine turning trash into money, waste into resources. Perfect efficiency. And i love efficiency.

 

[DazBurger]

Erhm... So? Plastic is made of oil after all

 

[olicon]

And impractical. Why would anyone want to do this?

Well, first of all, pay attention to what is said in the video.

Summary:

1. Reduce the amount of trash around, in landfills and etc.

2. Help with carbon dioxide emissions.

3. Allowing us to recycle some oil now, when before it was impossible.

1. Okay, that's kinda useful.

2. No, no it wouldn't. In fact a process like this would just add more CO[sub]2[/sub]. Not that I care.

3. Temporarily.

Why would it add more CO2?
Use clean energy, dammit! The sun's shining, the wind's a blowin'. There are plenty of free energy to be captured around us. That's the beauty of these things.
Would it truly reduce CO2? Well..successful combustion also creates methane and CO. Methane is worse than CO2 as a greenhouse gas, (by about 4 times), but CO is better, I think. Overall, it has high potential, so long as we are not burning coal to feed it energy.

And hopefully it's temporary, yes. Ultimately though, oil is still a lot more energy packed than batteries can be. There will always be some operations out there that will require using gasoline/jet fuel over battery power.

 

[Zykon TheLich]

Read the subtitles in the video, it is supposed to be very good for our environment.

I suppose it's nice to have the ability, but energy wise it's a bit of a waste. It's already plastic, might as well keep it as such, we already have oil with wich to make the other products. Maybe at some point in the future when we've really screwed things up and desperately search through all our landfills for those old tv dinner trays to turn into petrol...


EDIT:

HMMM you want to sacrifice a quite, quite large energy input to turn plastic into a smaller amount (youre lying if you claim you can do this and not lose at least some volatiles) of feed stock, of less uniform composition than what went into making the plastic in the first place. capable of being burnt for less than a tenth of the energy it took to get it...

sorry why not just recycle the plastic normally? it would result in more usable material at a lower energy cost...

This is kind of what I was getting at, although you could use renewable energy and it wouldn't be such a waste, but still it's only really worth turning it back into oil if there is something that you desperately need fromn oil that can't be got from elsewhere.

 

[crimson5pheonix]

And impractical. Why would anyone want to do this?

Well, first of all, pay attention to what is said in the video.

Summary:

1. Reduce the amount of trash around, in landfills and etc.

2. Help with carbon dioxide emissions.

3. Allowing us to recycle some oil now, when before it was impossible.

1. Okay, that's kinda useful.

2. No, no it wouldn't. In fact a process like this would just add more CO[sub]2[/sub]. Not that I care.

3. Temporarily.

Why would it add more CO2?
Use clean energy, dammit! The sun's shining, the wind's a blowin'. There are plenty of free energy to be captured around us. That's the beauty of these things.
Would it truly reduce CO2? Well..successful combustion also creates methane and CO. Methane is worse than CO2 as a greenhouse gas, (by about 4 times), but CO is better, I think. Overall, it has high potential, so long as we are not burning coal to feed it energy.

And hopefully it's temporary, yes. Ultimately though, oil is still a lot more energy packed than batteries can be. There will always be some operations out there that will require using gasoline/jet fuel over battery power.

It would add more CO[sub]2[/sub] by virtue of the fact that the hydrocarbons were locked in a solid mass and have been converted into a burnable fuel.

 

[Harrowdown]

No, that's not really true. The concept is really very simple, although it is admittedly difficult to do in practice. It's so difficult in fact, that the gains from the process don't compensate for the effort and energy put in.

So, it's not remarkable that he has figured out a way to make it not nearly as difficult, and definitely worth the effort and energy?

Well, alright, if you say so. (Not really.)

I suppose it's an achievement of sorts, but it's not going to go anywhere. You're still only getting a litre of oil for every three kilograms of plastic. That's nowhere near enough to satisfy societies energy needs. Less C02 will be created by burning trash, but we'll still be burning the oil. it's better to just recycle the plastics normally and seek out cleaner energy sources. This sort of thing is an extremely short-term solution to our environmental and energy use problems. It's scraping the bottom of a very empty barrel when we should be avoiding grasping at these straws altogether.

 

[snowman6251]

Plastic is made from oil so it makes sense that the process is reversible.

 

[Vishnu Namboodiripad]

they made oil into plastic, now plastic into oil? cool!

 

[Sinclair Solutions]

So does that mean we can use all the recyclable bottles to make oil now? That would be pretty awesome. We would cut down on pollution and end the gas crisis.

 

[Nieroshai]

So this guy distills oil out of plastic. Which is made with oil. Already-drawn oil.
The only problem with this is: do we recycle plastic into other forms so we don't have to use chemicals to make as much plastic, or take the plastic out of the system to get precious few drops of oil? Sounds wasteful and not worth the effort.

 

[Riobux]

My only massive problem with this is it likely requires a lot of power to run the machine that does it, thus making it not a cost-effect way to deal with it. Sure, produces oil and cleans plastic up, but it's a very expensive way.

 

[Addendum_Forthcoming]

And impractical. Why would anyone want to do this?

Well, first of all, pay attention to what is said in the video.

Summary:

1. Reduce the amount of trash around, in landfills and etc.

2. Help with carbon dioxide emissions.

3. Allowing us to recycle some oil now, when before it was impossible.

1: How exactly?

2: How exactly?

3: How exactly?

 

[dietpeachsnapple]

The directions I am seeing this going.

First, people playing this down as unimpressive.
I disagree. If someone has generated a mechanism, based on WHATEVER already present theory, that can turn non-biodegradable trash into a fuel source (or ANY useful product), then it is worthy of accolades, not derision.

Second, that it is likely not a fuel efficient method of dealing with plastic, arguing that it will take more energy to make the oil, than it will generate through the oil. A completely valid argument, however, I would counter with two points. One, this would still lessen the size and impact of many landfills, even generating the possibility that we may be able to use it as a clean up method for areas where trash has accumulated to a hazardous level. Two, we are only seeing this work on a small scale, researched at the individual level. The potential for this to garner a viable solution is promising.

 

[RobfromtheGulag]

Considering we have a worldwide oil shortage and at least when I was in school I was taught that plastics were going to rot in the dump for up to 1000 years, I think this is good stuff.

If this was such an easy feat you'd think we might have thought of it, oh, a few summers ago at least when gas was up to $4 a gallon.

Hats off to the Japanese dude.

 

[Addendum_Forthcoming]

The directions I am seeing this going.

First, people playing this down as unimpressive.
I disagree. If someone has generated a mechanism, based on WHATEVER already present theory, that can turn non-biodegradable trash into a fuel source (or ANY useful product), then it is worthy of accolades, not derision.

Second, that it is likely not a fuel efficient method of dealing with plastic, arguing that it will take more energy to make the oil, than it will generate through the oil. A completely valid argument, however, I would counter with two points. One, this would still lessen the size and impact of many landfills, even generating the possibility that we may be able to use it as a clean up method for areas where trash has accumulated to a hazardous level. Two, we are only seeing this work on a small scale, researched at the individual level. The potential for this to garner a viable solution is promising.

But that's what recyling is for... you take old plastic bottles and you turn them into more plastic bottles ....

What are you going to do with oil other than process it into differing types of petrochemicals like plastics or fuel/motor oil/etc?

Essentially the guy is taking a processed good and turning into something that needs further refining which costs more energy and produces more waste. And I doubt the process is as efficient as turning a plastic bottle into another plastic bottle.

I think the old quote I'm looking for is 'Just because you can, doesn't mean you should.'

Or perhaps most fittingly would be ... "Don't fix what ain't broke"

 

[Grey_Focks]

something coming out of Japan that doesn't make me cringe, vomit, or facepalm?

Well done, sir. Well done.

 

[zehydra]

I could be totally wrong on this, but isn't plastic made from oil/petroleum in the first place?