A Machine That Turns Plastic Back Into Oil

[Cogman]

Because it has the word radiation in it!!!!1! Politicians operate in the absence of information and go with their gut.

It kills me how simple the process could be. 3 doors and a conveyor belt. Entrance and exit door open, stuff moves into chamber, Entrance exit door close, irradiation chamber door open, food sits for x amount of time (depending on how radioactive the material is in the chamber), radiation door closes, and repeat.

 

[Moonbeam]

Perhaps if you could state things in a manner which clearly conveyed your ideas, I wouldn't appear so dense. I can't get information that isn't there.

People are buried with the implants I make, and they will decompose as the person does: they are made from biopolymers. Most medical plastics could be safely reused after autoclaving except the government has made that illegal. Now, they have to be autoclaved in a red plastic biohazard bag or thick plastic sharps container, then landfilled. You'll find the same sort of government regulations helping plastic recycling in other industries as well. Don't you think Coke would reuse a bottle after cleaning it rather than paying to make a new bottle from scratch? The law here may have changed recently, but I know it used to be illegal for them to do this.

Sorry but it never occurred to me that anybody reading the article and the subject matter of giving value to trash would imagine that somebody referring to the fact that plastic is worthless, not plastic items mind you, but the plastic itself, would infer that I meant anything other than plastic as trash and the fact that it is trash because it has no value. One great value of plastic IS that plastic is so cheap it can be thrown away and that only in that and it's semi indestructibility, makes it a menace.

Because we are poisoning the oceans in many ways we will need to rethink how we do many things.

 

[William Gaatjes]

If you could properly read English, you would see what I am saying: companies are made up of people. People misuse tools, such as plastics, all the time. I made no excuses for the people abusing plastics either - I only stated that it makes no sense to blame the tool for how the tool is used. If I produce hammers and someone uses a hammer to kill someone, does that make hammers evil?

I think you're from India, so I'll tell you what bothers me: someone from India telling someone from the US that US corporations are terrible polluters. This statement is an amazing demonstration of your own ignorance.

Speaking of arrogance and ignorance, I am not from India. Try again. You also just write for the writing. Not for the subject, but because you want to be right. But every time you want to be right , you will be wrong.
It was about plastic and taking care of plastic waste. Yes or not ?

And afcourse i am stating companies, you live in a country where companies with a lot of money have more to say then should be allowed in a western democratic society. While you fight viciously over democratic republican issue's, you do not have the time or the energy to look what is happening around you. But i think somewhere you do... Because did you not start working for the government for a reason ? And comparing a developing country to a western rich country that has left the developing fase long behind. Come on, that is not you.
Have you forgotten how the US was during the 1850's to 1980's ? The industrial revolution and the clean up and banning of chemicals afterwards ?

 

[William Gaatjes]

Perhaps if you could state things in a manner which clearly conveyed your ideas, I wouldn't appear so dense. I can't get information that isn't there.

People are buried with the implants I make, and they will decompose as the person does: they are made from biopolymers. Most medical plastics could be safely reused after autoclaving except the government has made that illegal. Now, they have to be autoclaved in a red plastic biohazard bag or thick plastic sharps container, then landfilled. You'll find the same sort of government regulations helping plastic recycling in other industries as well. Don't you think Coke would reuse a bottle after cleaning it rather than paying to make a new bottle from scratch? The law here may have changed recently, but I know it used to be illegal for them to do this.

Because of some idiot with a calculator and an excel sheet has convinced the people who make the decisions that it is actually cheaper to throw bottles away then to reuse them. Ask Toastedlightly, if i do not understand him wrong, he mention this also in his posts in this thread.

We used to have glass bottles remember ? Afcourse the glass bottle weighs a significant part when compared to the amount of liquid in the bottles which can be noticed while transporting and this has to be taken into account as well when the decision was made to switch from glass to plastic.
But as mentioned before, it is cheaper to just create plastics then just recycle them. Some companies actually do re use the bottles but it is rare. For as far as i know, all the bottles i have seen are thrown away.

And when it comes to throwing away the medical plastics, who do you think really benefit's from filling a landscape with them ? The government or the company that produces them ? Government regulations in the US are set up to create and sustain a market. Not to protect the citizens.
Well at least some of those regulations are...

You want another example, Every few years a whole new range of models of computers come out. And afcourse every few years there is an upgrade period at large companies and institutions. Now these old computers where perfectly fine to use, Microsoft can try but they are not able to create an OS that is taxing the hardware extremely heavy every 5 years up to the maximum. It would not be sold and be fired down by the techforums and tech sites. I mention this to keep in the back of your mind. The big question is what happens to those old machines ? Are these old machines refurbished and sold at a lower price in developing countries ? Well some entrepreneurs from those countries try and do just that and succeed to this. A large part of those perfectly ok machines are destroyed. These machines end up in a shredder to protect the market. Because then all that whole range of new models would not be sold. I have seen this happening. This is an old story and may not be up to date anymore but it is real.

You can blame your government for everything and all, life is not that black and white.
Because for most of you the government is comprised of having on one side the left politician who wants everything green. And the right politician on the other side of the spectrum who even sell his mother to the devil for a profit.

 

[William Gaatjes]

This is a big issue for me. (off topic).

The government has instituted several extreme laws in the name of "safety" that really should be abolished. For example, irradiation sterilization. It could be used as one of the most effect sterilization methods out there. Diereses like salmonella would become none existent, almost all foods would have their shelf life increased dramatically (vacuum sealed food would last for a near eternity). Yet why don't we do this? Because the government is afraid that a sealed container of radioactive material could somehow magically make the stuff exposed to it radioactive.

That is because of the over exaggerated fear for radiation. Which is created by the environment protection groups because of the lack of respect for rules and regulations by the companies who work with radiation producing techniques and industries(nuclear plants being such an example). One extreme response caused by the other extreme response.I have dug a little deeper only to find out that the radiation is not the problem, it is the human factor that is the problem. If someone dies because of his own misconduct, so be it. But if a lot of other people die of the misconduct of 1 person... Add the fact that ceo's of these companies cannot be held criminal responsible...

I mean for example a coal plant produces more radioactivity then a nuclear plant and produces CO2 and CO which a nuclear plant does not. Both need concrete, both need building materials. No difference there...
When a nuclear plant is handled properly it is the safest and cleanest form of energy also in the long run. But in the wrong (greedy)hands it is deadly. That is why people decide in favour of coal plants. Even when it is just wrong wrong wrong.

 

[CycloWizard]

Speaking of arrogance and ignorance, I am not from India. Try again. You also just write for the writing. Not for the subject, but because you want to be right. But every time you want to be right , you will be wrong.
It was about plastic and taking care of plastic waste. Yes or not ?

And afcourse i am stating companies, you live in a country where companies with a lot of money have more to say then should be allowed in a western democratic society. While you fight viciously over democratic republican issue's, you do not have the time or the energy to look what is happening around you. But i think somewhere you do... Because did you not start working for the government for a reason ? And comparing a developing country to a western rich country that has left the developing fase long behind. Come on, that is not you.
Have you forgotten how the US was during the 1850's to 1980's ? The industrial revolution and the clean up and banning of chemicals afterwards ?

After admitting that you're a troll in highly technical, I don't have anything else to say to you here. You simply make up whatever suits your idiotic agenda in a given post, even if you know your "facts" are incorrect. I don't care where you're from, but you're welcome to stay there.

 

[William Gaatjes]

After admitting that you're a troll in highly technical, I don't have anything else to say to you here. You simply make up whatever suits your idiotic agenda in a given post, even if you know your "facts" are incorrect. I don't care where you're from, but you're welcome to stay there.

You are the one i am sad to say behaving like a troll. I confront you with simple reason and history, do not even need logic yet. And you call me a troll. I have not read the HT yet. But i do know you will respond in the same way. Don't you... I have given you an honest debate with subjects. Yet you debate for debating. I debate for an answer. That is the difference. I do not care if i am right or wrong, in the end i learn something either way. Today, i have confirmed what i learned about 2 years ago. You are a narrow minded and narrow viewed individual.
You do not debate the subject, you debate the person. As i told you before that is something that is cheap us politics. Remember your quote from Eleanor Roosevelt ?
"Great minds discuss ideas. Average minds discuss events. Small minds discuss people."

Well hello small mind...

As a matter of fact, i will just copy paste this same post directly into the HT thread.

 

[CycloWizard]

You are the one i am sad to say behaving like a troll. I confront you with simple reason and history, do not even need logic yet. And you call me a troll. I have not read the HT yet. But i do know you will respond in the same way. Don't you... I have given you an honest debate with subjects. Yet you debate for debating. I debate for an answer. That is the difference. I do not care if i am right or wrong, in the end i learn something either way. Today, i have confirmed what i learned about 2 years ago. You are a narrow minded and narrow viewed individual.
You do not debate the subject, you debate the person. As i told you before that is something that is cheap us politics. Remember your quote from Eleanor Roosevelt ?
"Great minds discuss ideas. Average minds discuss events. Small minds discuss people."

Well hello small mind...

As a matter of fact, i will just copy paste this same post directly into the HT thread.

You admitted in HT that you posted something contrary to known fact (indeed, fact known to you, not just to the scientific community). You also admitted posting incorrect information simply, "to cause a stir." I, on the other hand, may ply both sides of a given argument, but I never post incorrect facts, and I certainly never do so simply, "to cause a stir." That, among other things, makes you a troll. I don't think anyone in HT has any reason to doubt my competency, so I doubt you'll find many takers in P&N (except for those who have political ideological reasons will agree with your admittedly false claims). The bottom line is that you don't know what you're talking about, act like you do know what you're talking about, and post things which you know are objectively false to support your position. That is the hallmark of a troll.

edit: link to the highly technical forum thread in question:
http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?p=30367596&posted=1#post30367596

 

[William Gaatjes]

You admitted in HT that you posted something contrary to known fact (indeed, fact known to you, not just to the scientific community). You also admitted posting incorrect information simply, "to cause a stir." I, on the other hand, may ply both sides of a given argument, but I never post incorrect facts, and I certainly never do so simply, "to cause a stir." That, among other things, makes you a troll. I don't think anyone in HT has any reason to doubt my competency, so I doubt you'll find many takers in P&N (except for those who have political ideological reasons will agree with your admittedly false claims). The bottom line is that you don't know what you're talking about, act like you do know what you're talking about, and post things which you know are objectively false to support your position. That is the hallmark of a troll.

edit: link to the highly technical forum thread in question:
http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?p=30367596&posted=1#post30367596

Blah blah. We where talking in this thread about plastics and how plastics are treated as waste and as an inconvenience when it comes to making money. Not about another thread where as everywhere else i always have stated that i have an opinion based on findings that is as much possible as the current accepted theories. Because all theories are based on indirect evidence after a lot of calculations based on assumptions.
I am sorry for you that you do not seem genuinely interested in the subject, you are just interested in nagging. That for me defines a troll. I would almost think you have an alias of at least 2 forum members to troll. One has always the same last sentence in his post. I would have expected that with your background you would have come up with an idea yourself or a proper explanation why recycling cannot be done as easy as us humble people seem to think... We know about the toxins, Toastedlightly made that very clear what the limitations of this machine are and why it should not be used. It is too bad we cannot ask the inventor of the machine what he thinks of the monomers.

 

[CycloWizard]

Blah blah. We where talking in this thread about plastics and how plastics are treated as waste and as an inconvenience when it comes to making money. Not about another thread where as everywhere else i always have stated that i have an opinion based on findings that is as much possible as the current accepted theories. Because all theories are based on indirect evidence after a lot of calculations based on assumptions.
I am sorry for you that you do not seem genuinely interested in the subject, you are just interested in nagging. That for me defines a troll. I would almost think you have an alias of at least 2 forum members to troll. One has always the same last sentence in his post. I would have expected that with your background you would have come up with an idea yourself or a proper explanation why recycling cannot be done as easy as us humble people seem to think... We know about the toxins, Toastedlightly made that very clear what the limitations of this machine are and why it should not be used. It is too bad we cannot ask the inventor of the machine what he thinks of the monomers.

You're not interested in answers, only in assigning blame and posting nonsense. In any case, this is not the forum for discussing the pros and cons of various thermoplastic recycling processes. I gave a valid explanation as to why the proposed method is rubbish. Your dismissal of that explanation doesn't make it invalid, nor does it make me a troll.

 

[Toastedlightly]

Blah blah. We where talking in this thread about plastics and how plastics are treated as waste and as an inconvenience when it comes to making money. Not about another thread where as everywhere else i always have stated that i have an opinion based on findings that is as much possible as the current accepted theories. Because all theories are based on indirect evidence after a lot of calculations based on assumptions.
I am sorry for you that you do not seem genuinely interested in the subject, you are just interested in nagging. That for me defines a troll. I would almost think you have an alias of at least 2 forum members to troll. One has always the same last sentence in his post. I would have expected that with your background you would have come up with an idea yourself or a proper explanation why recycling cannot be done as easy as us humble people seem to think... We know about the toxins, Toastedlightly made that very clear what the limitations of this machine are and why it should not be used. It is too bad we cannot ask the inventor of the machine what he thinks of the monomers.

You are rather foolish to ignore CycloWizard, but here is my explanation.

So you are going to turn some polyethylene into oil. For the sake of this calculation, we are going to turn a 10,000 unit polymer into a linear octene. The polymer we are going to use will be linear low density polyethylene (simplifying to a purely linear structure, no side-branching). Simple. Now to do some math.

Now we have 1 kg of 5,000 chain long LLDPE. This 1 kg contains 0.0125 moles of LLDPE polymer. If we are to make each chain 8 monomer units long, we will have 623 splits in each chain. That gives us a total of 7.7875 moles of bonds to be broken and made. Now lets look at general bond energies.

C-C bond is 83 kcal / mol
C=C bond is 146 kcal / mol
C-H bond is 99 kcal / mol

we go from a repeat unit of -[CH2-CH2-CH2-CH2-CH2-CH2-CH2-CH2]n- where n = 625 (ignoring the ends) to 625 molecules of CH2=CH-CH2-CH2-CH2-CH2-CH2-CH3. We have done the following on each chain:

Bonds broken:
1 C-C bond
1 C-H bond

Bonds made:
1 C=C bond
1 C-H bond

That gives a total energy requirement of (for bond breaking only):

-83-99+99+146 = 63 kcal / mol = 263.5 kJ per mol

Now we have 7.7875 moles of bonds to break, so our total energy requirement would be:

2052 kJ / kg of LLDPE. This is 0.57 kWh.

This is merely what I would call the bond energy requirement. Don't forget activation energy for these decompositions. Also, this is creating a single longer chain product. Decompostition products are often shorter chained. This also doesn't include the inefficient heater/inverter system, heat lost to external sources. Reaction rate needs to be taken into account.

I have no idea how to account for these other variations. I would be interested in seeing the specifications for his unit (hehe).

 

[Cogman]

You are rather foolish to ignore CycloWizard, but here is my explanation.

So you are going to turn some polyethylene into oil. For the sake of this calculation, we are going to turn a 10,000 unit polymer into a linear octene. The polymer we are going to use will be linear low density polyethylene (simplifying to a purely linear structure, no side-branching). Simple. Now to do some math.

Now we have 1 kg of 5,000 chain long LLDPE. This 1 kg contains 0.0125 moles of LLDPE polymer. If we are to make each chain 8 monomer units long, we will have 623 splits in each chain. That gives us a total of 7.7875 moles of bonds to be broken and made. Now lets look at general bond energies.

C-C bond is 83 kcal / mol
C=C bond is 146 kcal / mol
C-H bond is 99 kcal / mol

we go from a repeat unit of -[CH2-CH2-CH2-CH2-CH2-CH2-CH2-CH2]n- where n = 625 (ignoring the ends) to 625 molecules of CH2=CH-CH2-CH2-CH2-CH2-CH2-CH3. We have done the following on each chain:

Bonds broken:
1 C-C bond
1 C-H bond

Bonds made:
1 C=C bond
1 C-H bond

That gives a total energy requirement of (for bond breaking only):

-83-99+99+146 = 63 kcal / mol = 263.5 kJ per mol

Now we have 7.7875 moles of bonds to break, so our total energy requirement would be:

2052 kJ / kg of LLDPE. This is 0.57 kWh.

This is merely what I would call the bond energy requirement. Don't forget activation energy for these decompositions. Also, this is creating a single longer chain product. Decompostition products are often shorter chained. This also doesn't include the inefficient heater/inverter system, heat lost to external sources. Reaction rate needs to be taken into account.

I have no idea how to account for these other variations. I would be interested in seeing the specifications for his unit (hehe).

Thank you. This was exactly the type of answer for the energy requirements I was looking for. While I relize it is not complete, it at least suggests that it is feasible to have a net energy gain from the process. Though, .57 is a pretty large chunk from the 3.7kwh (Excluding energy required to create the plastic. However, the assumption made is the plastic is there anyways, not that it is specially made for this purpose)

BTW, electric heaters are somewhere in the range of being 99.9% efficient. And if the element is vacuum sealed, or highly insulated than the heat lost through leakage would be quite minimal.

 

[Toastedlightly]

Thank you. This was exactly the type of answer for the energy requirements I was looking for. While I relize it is not complete, it at least suggests that it is feasible to have a net energy gain from the process. Though, .57 is a pretty large chunk from the 3.7kwh (Excluding energy required to create the plastic. However, the assumption made is the plastic is there anyways, not that it is specially made for this purpose)

BTW, electric heaters are somewhere in the range of being 99.9% efficient. And if the element is vacuum sealed, or highly insulated than the heat lost through leakage would be quite minimal.

It isn't possible to have a "net energy gain". You will lose energy to the outside. There is no stopping heat transfer, it is just a way of life. One thing that seems to be neglected is the need for post-processing this material.

All that will result from this decomposition process would be a mixture of shorter chained carbon compounds. These need to be separated and the traditional means is by a distillation column.

Lets say that 1 kWh is all that was required to process this material. At 25 cents per kWh, a 42 gallon barrel (what raw petroleum come from) would cost in the range of 32 dollars. Crude is currently traded at ~75 per barrel. This new "ultralight" crude would not be really equivilent to standard crude, so this is a very rough comparison.

Now this is based on the process not having any cost beyond power at a very high efficiency. My numbers may be off, but this is a dirty napkin calculation.

 

[werepossum]

It isn't possible to have a "net energy gain". You will lose energy to the outside. There is no stopping heat transfer, it is just a way of life. One thing that seems to be neglected is the need for post-processing this material.

All that will result from this decomposition process would be a mixture of shorter chained carbon compounds. These need to be separated and the traditional means is by a distillation column.

Lets say that 1 kWh is all that was required to process this material. At 25 cents per kWh, a 42 gallon barrel (what raw petroleum come from) would cost in the range of 32 dollars. Crude is currently traded at ~75 per barrel. This new "ultralight" crude would not be really equivilent to standard crude, so this is a very rough comparison.

Now this is based on the process not having any cost beyond power at a very high efficiency. My numbers may be off, but this is a dirty napkin calculation.

Thanks for the excellent analysis. This again brings to mind thermal depolymerization, which was originally touted as a way to reclaim petroleum-like compounds from things high in such compounds such as automobile tires and plastics. The people working on this soon discovered it was much more efficient to make oil from other things, like poultry plant offal.

Still, this thing may be practical in some situations, depending on the total energy gradient, the availability (and exact composition) of the plastic, and the cost of landfilling or otherwise disposing of the plastic. One intriguing application would be a floating recycling station running mostly on solar energy and recycling the huge islands of waste plastic floating in our oceans, and it isn't hard to imagine other applications where some other consideration (like the desirability of NOT having giant islands of trash in our oceans) might make this thing practical.

 

[Cogman]

It isn't possible to have a "net energy gain". You will lose energy to the outside. There is no stopping heat transfer, it is just a way of life. One thing that seems to be neglected is the need for post-processing this material.

All that will result from this decomposition process would be a mixture of shorter chained carbon compounds. These need to be separated and the traditional means is by a distillation column.

Lets say that 1 kWh is all that was required to process this material. At 25 cents per kWh, a 42 gallon barrel (what raw petroleum come from) would cost in the range of 32 dollars. Crude is currently traded at ~75 per barrel. This new "ultralight" crude would not be really equivilent to standard crude, so this is a very rough comparison.

Now this is based on the process not having any cost beyond power at a very high efficiency. My numbers may be off, but this is a dirty napkin calculation.

Net energy gain in the sense that using the oil from plastic will release more energy than energy used to change the plastic into oil in the first place.

Post processing is an issue though.

 

[William Gaatjes]

You are rather foolish to ignore CycloWizard, but here is my explanation.

So you are going to turn some polyethylene into oil. For the sake of this calculation, we are going to turn a 10,000 unit polymer into a linear octene. The polymer we are going to use will be linear low density polyethylene (simplifying to a purely linear structure, no side-branching). Simple. Now to do some math.

Now we have 1 kg of 5,000 chain long LLDPE. This 1 kg contains 0.0125 moles of LLDPE polymer. If we are to make each chain 8 monomer units long, we will have 623 splits in each chain. That gives us a total of 7.7875 moles of bonds to be broken and made. Now lets look at general bond energies.

C-C bond is 83 kcal / mol
C=C bond is 146 kcal / mol
C-H bond is 99 kcal / mol

we go from a repeat unit of -[CH2-CH2-CH2-CH2-CH2-CH2-CH2-CH2]n- where n = 625 (ignoring the ends) to 625 molecules of CH2=CH-CH2-CH2-CH2-CH2-CH2-CH3. We have done the following on each chain:

Bonds broken:
1 C-C bond
1 C-H bond

Bonds made:
1 C=C bond
1 C-H bond

That gives a total energy requirement of (for bond breaking only):

-83-99+99+146 = 63 kcal / mol = 263.5 kJ per mol

Now we have 7.7875 moles of bonds to break, so our total energy requirement would be:

2052 kJ / kg of LLDPE. This is 0.57 kWh.

This is merely what I would call the bond energy requirement. Don't forget activation energy for these decompositions. Also, this is creating a single longer chain product. Decompostition products are often shorter chained. This also doesn't include the inefficient heater/inverter system, heat lost to external sources. Reaction rate needs to be taken into account.

I have no idea how to account for these other variations. I would be interested in seeing the specifications for his unit (hehe).

I can assure you i have no desire to ignore anyone nor do i do such a thing. It is part of the social process of interacting on a forum. Secretly we are all friends with a common goal. ^_^

But thank you for your breakdown in numbers. Here i can crunch on while setting real limits when thinking about the pro's and con's.

 

[Moonbeam]

What are all these calculations intended to prove. I mentioned one commercial unit that uses around 8 hundred thousand BTU to return 16 million BTU from the waste plastic or 20 times out what goes in, no? Amazingly, it also gets rid of the plastic waste.

 

[CycloWizard]

What are all these calculations intended to prove. I mentioned one commercial unit that uses around 8 hundred thousand BTU to return 16 million BTU from the waste plastic or 20 times out what goes in, no? Amazingly, it also gets rid of the plastic waste.

Plenty of commercial products make claims which break the laws of nature. The problem is that their performance can't break these laws. If you link to said unit, maybe we can comment on it further.

 

[Toastedlightly]

What are all these calculations intended to prove. I mentioned one commercial unit that uses around 8 hundred thousand BTU to return 16 million BTU from the waste plastic or 20 times out what goes in, no? Amazingly, it also gets rid of the plastic waste.

So it uses an incinerator to dispose of the plastic? I'm a bit confused on how this machine operates.

 

[Moonbeam]

Plenty of commercial products make claims which break the laws of nature. The problem is that their performance can't break these laws. If you link to said unit, maybe we can comment on it further.

Oh shit, I fudged the numbers. Here is what I posted:

"Here's some info on another commercial machine being built and sold here in America called the Hawk:

The machine is a microwave emitter that extracts the petroleum and gas hidden inside everyday objects—or at least anything made with hydrocarbons, which, it turns out, is most of what’s around you. Every hour, the first commercial version will turn 10 tons of auto waste—tires, plastic, vinyl—into enough natural gas to produce 17 million BTUs of energy (it will use 956,000 of those BTUs to keep itself running)."

Lets stick the quote in Google to see where I got it:

http://www.popsci.com/popsci/flat/bown/2007/innovator_2.html

So Toastedlightly, you can go to Global Research Corporation's website and read up on the process. The machine is called the Hawk 10.

 

[Toastedlightly]

Oh shit, I fudged the numbers. Here is what I posted:

"Here's some info on another commercial machine being built and sold here in America called the Hawk:

The machine is a microwave emitter that extracts the petroleum and gas hidden inside everyday objects—or at least anything made with hydrocarbons, which, it turns out, is most of what’s around you. Every hour, the first commercial version will turn 10 tons of auto waste—tires, plastic, vinyl—into enough natural gas to produce 17 million BTUs of energy (it will use 956,000 of those BTUs to keep itself running)."

Lets stick the quote in Google to see where I got it:

http://www.popsci.com/popsci/flat/bown/2007/innovator_2.html

So Toastedlightly, you can go to Global Research Corporation's website and read up on the process. The machine is called the Hawk 10.

Its a simple process really (from the site, I don't like PopSci for real science). Microwaves are emitted at the wavelength that C-C bonds (or other bonds, can be targeted w/ wavelength) vibrate to the point where they break. A low pressure is maintained in the reaction vessel to aid in the diffusion of the generated gas out of the material. There is always waste material which must then be disposed of after the process has run its course.

They have not built a commercial unit. They are still in the investigation phase. I won't believe a quoted figure until the machine is actually operating at that level (they can do all the calculations they want, scale up is always a bitch).

http://www.globalresourcecorp.com/

Read up if you are interested.

This link doesn't really pertain to what seems to be happening with the OP's invention.

 

[Moonbeam]

Its a simple process really (from the site, I don't like PopSci for real science). Microwaves are emitted at the wavelength that C-C bonds (or other bonds, can be targeted w/ wavelength) vibrate to the point where they break. A low pressure is maintained in the reaction vessel to aid in the diffusion of the generated gas out of the material. There is always waste material which must then be disposed of after the process has run its course.

They have not built a commercial unit. They are still in the investigation phase. I won't believe a quoted figure until the machine is actually operating at that level (they can do all the calculations they want, scale up is always a bitch).

http://www.globalresourcecorp.com/

Read up if you are interested.

This link doesn't really pertain to what seems to be happening with the OP's invention.

What seems to be happening is what seem to be happening in your opinion. Others think it's similar which is what tipped me off to the existence of this Hawk 10 one in the first place.

 

[Moonbeam]

Its a simple process really (from the site, I don't like PopSci for real science). Microwaves are emitted at the wavelength that C-C bonds (or other bonds, can be targeted w/ wavelength) vibrate to the point where they break. A low pressure is maintained in the reaction vessel to aid in the diffusion of the generated gas out of the material. There is always waste material which must then be disposed of after the process has run its course.

They have not built a commercial unit. They are still in the investigation phase. I won't believe a quoted figure until the machine is actually operating at that level (they can do all the calculations they want, scale up is always a bitch).

http://www.globalresourcecorp.com/

Read up if you are interested.

This link doesn't really pertain to what seems to be happening with the OP's invention.

As happens when we want to argue with folk, we find new complaints as old ones are resolved. Here, therefore, is something not from popscience or what ever it was you could also find elsewhere, but also something in actual operation:

http://www.gizmag.com/envion-plastic-waste-to-oil-generator/12902/

I'm sure, of course, your brilliantly negative mind can find something wrong with this. hehe

Several things I noted while watching the video were the gimmicky use of green paint, the inefficient means of filling the hopper, the lack of a printer forcing the use of a pen, the lack of a catch pan under the oil hose used to take samples, and I already knew how to open and close a valve.

 

[Toastedlightly]

As happens when we want to argue with folk, we find new complaints as old ones are resolved. Here, therefore, is something not from popscience or what ever it was you could also find elsewhere, but also something in actual operation:

http://www.gizmag.com/envion-plastic-waste-to-oil-generator/12902/

I'm sure, of course, your brilliantly negative mind can find something wrong with this. hehe

Several things I noted while watching the video were the gimmicky use of green paint, the inefficient means of filling the hopper, the lack of a printer forcing the use of a pen, the lack of a catch pan under the oil hose used to take samples, and I already knew how to open and close a valve.

Before you get all high and mighty, this isn't the same company you linked me to before when you were quoting the energy usage.

Again, I am qualified to comment on industrial chemical processes, as I am both a chemist and a chemical engineer.

I can't find much literature on the Envion process so I really cannot comment (I'm looking through patent literature now).

I ask again though, how did we get from small in your house style recycler into industrial scale? It seems the thread hit a bit of a detour on the way.

EDIT: The reason I am rather skeptical of many claims is that if it were possible to do with relative ease and if it were cost efficient, why hasn't anyone yet done it widescale?

 

[Moonbeam]

Before you get all high and mighty, this isn't the same company you linked me to before when you were quoting the energy usage.

M: No, but this one has its own numbers and overcomes the criticism you leveled at the other, although gizmo mag might be suspect.

T: Again, I am qualified to comment on industrial chemical processes, as I am both a chemist and a chemical engineer.

M: I am a nobody.

T: I can't find much literature on the Envion process so I really cannot comment (I'm looking through patent literature now).

M: Cool

T: I ask again though, how did we get from small in your house style recycler into industrial scale? It seems the thread hit a bit of a detour on the way.

M: My answer to that was a search for the efficiency of the first machine lead to the third and the second and I mentioned the second when it came to an alternate for numbers to show efficiency as that became the issue being questioned.

T: EDIT: The reason I am rather skeptical of many claims is that if it were possible to do with relative ease and if it were cost efficient, why hasn't anyone yet done it widescale?

M: Well as I always say, new organs of perception develop with need and so do machines. Throw away one plastic bottle, not much of an issue, throw away billions of them and............well you know.

It's sort of situational ethics.

An example of how things that aren't come to be:

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/07/22/BUP51EIF3H.DTL