metalresearcher
International Hazard
Posts: 684
Registered: 7-9-2010
Member Is Offline
Mood: Reactive
|
|
Pyrolyzing plastic waste: useful ?
I stumbled upon this article. I believe in Plastics Pyrolysis, but more as a means to create 'crude oil' from it as a precursor to new plastics, not
as an energy source. As this article says, it costs more energy to process plastic waste and refine the 'crude oil' to a useable fuel than the
obtained fuel delivers.
https://www.lowimpact.org/pyrolysis-not-solution-plastics-pr...
The last sentence is the most striking, which I totally agree:
The elephant in the room is capitalism and the throwaway culture that the present version of this economic system has created – ever demanding
new markets, more sales, more consumption, and more waste.
The best way to beat plastic waste is not producing plastic packaging unless really necessary (i.e. medical products).
But IMHO it is better to pyrolyze plastic waste for new plastic durable products with its (preferable renewable) energy cost than dumping it into the
landfill or incinerating it.
Currently, plastic is the worst recycled material, compared to steel, aluminum, paper and even concrete. Plastic waste from the UK sent to be
'recycled' is piling up in Hongkong and nothing happens with it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oRQLilXLAIU
What are your ideas ?
|
|
|
Belowzero
Hazard to Others
Posts: 164
Registered: 6-5-2020
Location: Member Is Offline
Member Is Offline
|
|
| Quote: |
The elephant in the room is capitalism and the throwaway culture that the present version of this economic system has created – ever demanding new
markets, more sales, more consumption, and more waste.
|
We are supposed to leave politics at the door but this just is a slimy and nonsensical oversimplified argument from a typical academic socialist.
Any other system ever implemented is way more wasteful and harmful to the environment (USSR anyone?!..)
Never compared to anything aka the utopian standard.
Apart from the simpleton politics, recycling plastic is a very good idea, perhaps solar energy that isn't used and not being stored can be applied for
such a purpose.
It is quite annoying how amost anything is packaged in plastic, worst being the single use bags.
Biodegradable is probably a much smarter route.
[Edited on 9-8-2021 by Belowzero]
|
|
|
Fyndium
International Hazard
Posts: 1162
Registered: 12-7-2020
Location: Not in USA
Member Is Offline
|
|
Learn the concept of least bad option. Also, from achieving something, it is sometimes productive to move into damage control - whatever fails is not
always total loss.
After that, the thing of pyrolyzing plastic into liquid hydrocarbons is a real and actual thing, and folks have used it to actually produce fuel for
diesel engines and generators.
PVC can also be used to produce hydrochloric acid. I tested this and actually got a concentrated solution very quickly when the thermal decomposition
took off. The reaction is autocatalytic once it takes off, so larger masses of PVC can cause issues if a runaway occurs. The smoke that pushed
through, and the mess it left behind was a different concept. It also produces vinyl chloride, which is highly toxic, though, so severe caution should
be taken.
[Edited on 13-8-2021 by Fyndium]
|
|
|
unionised
International Hazard
Posts: 4891
Registered: 1-11-2003
Location: UK
Member Is Offline
Mood: No Mood
|
|
Quote: Originally posted by Belowzero  | | Quote: |
The elephant in the room is capitalism and the throwaway culture that the present version of this economic system has created – ever demanding new
markets, more sales, more consumption, and more waste.
|
We are supposed to leave politics at the door but this just is a slimy and nonsensical oversimplified argument from a typical academic socialist.
Any other system ever implemented is way more wasteful and harmful to the environment (USSR anyone?!..)
Never compared to anything aka the utopian standard.
Apart from the simpleton politics, recycling plastic is a very good idea, perhaps solar energy that isn't used and not being stored can be applied for
such a purpose.
It is quite annoying how amost anything is packaged in plastic, worst being the single use bags.
Biodegradable is probably a much smarter route.
[Edited on 9-8-2021 by Belowzero] |
The driving force of capitalism is "growth" and, on a finite planet, that's a problem.
No need to compare it to anything else.
Recycling is a better bet than biodegradation because the latter guarantees a waste of energy and materials.
|
|
|
Panache
International Hazard
Posts: 1287
Registered: 18-10-2007
Member Is Offline
Mood: Instead of being my deliverance, she had a resemblance to a Kat named Frankenstein
|
|
I did my PhD I the late 90’s on pp film and that was within a mat eng department with a significant smattering of polymer academics. There was heaps
of money around even back then for developing uses for the recycled polymers.
I had a note up on my fridge for ages
Recycling-An expensive but virtueous process that converts waste than nobody wants into materials that nobody wants. esp plastics
I think, if I can recall it only takes 1% ish pvc in a polyolefin (hope, pp etc) to render most of the materials useful properties completely
compromised.
I recently went on a bit of a rant concerning the bag name polymers were getting around the world as misplaced, we should be criticising ourselves
these things are too frequently dumped back into any natural environment I’ll equipped to deal with something although largely innocuous chemical
it’s negative mechanical affects are wide ranging. Also as some of many additives compounded with polymers (in order to gain greater usefulness)
have notorious affects and they leach out often.
We need look no further than ourselves to blame really. Capitalism sucks, socialism is great, conceptually, we have never really been able to get it
to work. Perhaps if Cuba hadn’t tried to house missiles for the ussr socialism may have been successful there. Who knows.
I don’t think its anti capitalism to advocate stronger regulation. In fact those decrying industry regulation are absolute hypocrites often because
in highly regulated industries (ie cannot get more regulated than criminalising a molecule) they pander to governments.
As always the solution is simple baby boomers fucked everything up. They continue to stymie real progress, kill them all!!
|
|
|
andy1988
Hazard to Others
Posts: 135
Registered: 11-2-2018
Location: NW Americus ([i]in re[/i] Amerigo Vespucci)
Member Is Offline
Mood: No Mood
|
|
Here is an excellent article on plastic packaging. I didn't know of an approach to make cellophane moisture-proof prior to reading it, my
expectation was that petrochemical-based films dominated market-share due to being much more moisture-proof, but looks like they dominate based on
price:
| Quote: | | Cellophane dropped behind lower cost petrochemical-based films such as biaxially-oriented polyethylene terephthalate (BoPET) and biaxially oriented
polypropylene (BOPP) in the 1980s and 1990s but it has made somewhat of a resurgence in recent times due to the fact it is biosourced, compostable,
and biodegradable. Its sustainability record is clouded by its energy-intensive manufacturing process and potential negative impact of some of the
chemicals used, but significant progress in recent years has been made by leading manufacturers in reducing their environmental footprint [1]. |
Yes I'm sure efficient recycling processes can be found for niche products, e.g. carpet. The problem is how the bean counters currently tally things. And I think changing how they tally things to include the ecosystem is they
way to go [2][3].
Best not to get political, use more specific concepts than broad strokes on governance frameworks.
|
|
|
BromicAcid
International Hazard
Posts: 3112
Registered: 13-7-2003
Location: Wisconsin
Member Is Offline
Mood: Legitimate
|
|
Always avoid plastics where possible, should be a material of last resort not first attempt.
|
|
|
macckone
International Hazard
Posts: 2126
Registered: 1-3-2013
Location: Over a mile high
Member Is Offline
Mood: Electrical
|
|
Many polymers can be derived from plants, some are primarily derived from plants.
PLA, rayon, cellophane, nitrocellulose are primarily derived from plants
Polyethylene is relatively easy to make from fermentable compounds. (sugars -> alcohol -> ethylene -> polyethylene).
PVC can also be made from ethylene.
There are biochemical paths to nylon and many other plastics.
So in short plastics can be made from renewable resources, it just currently costs more.
If it can be made from biological sources, then biodegradation is possible.
There are bacteria that eat polyethylene, pvc is more difficult for them to break down but it can be recycled.
And of course most plastics are flammable. Sweden burns most of their trash.
|
|
|
MadHatter
International Hazard
Posts: 1244
Registered: 9-7-2004
Location: Maine
Member Is Offline
Mood: Enjoying retirement
|
|
Plastic
Here where I live in Maine(USA) styrofoam food containers
and plastic straws are now verboten. Whether or not to
burn plastic ? It depends on many things. We have large
biomass electrical generation here already. I don't know if we
burn plastics as fuel.
From opening of NCIS New Orleans - It goes a BOOM ! BOOM ! BOOM ! MUHAHAHAHAHAHAHA !
|
|
|
Antiswat
International Hazard
Posts: 1556
Registered: 12-12-2012
Location: Dysrope (aka europe)
Member Is Offline
Mood: dangerously practical
|
|
polyamide may under certain conditions (iirc 650*C+) produce HCN
PP/HDPE/LDPE may create "diesel"
polystyrene turns into styrene, useful as it can be oxidized into benzaldehyde over heated aluminium oxide catalyst with oxygen
melamine may be able to decompose into formaldehyde, actually certainly. if you ignite this plastic, you will smell formaldehyde. in the metal
industry a white plastic is oftenly used for machining called "sustarin b" this also emits formaldehyde vapors when heated, iirc its close to melamine
in composition
|
|
|
Amos
International Hazard
Posts: 1382
Registered: 25-3-2014
Location: Yes
Member Is Offline
Mood: No
|
|
| Quote: Originally posted by Belowzero |
We are supposed to leave politics at the door but this just is a slimy and nonsensical oversimplified argument from a typical academic socialist.
Apart from the simpleton politics
|
The negativity in the original post was directed at wastefulness, whereas your negativity is directed at the poster and the "academic socialist" (this
sounds shockingly anti-education by the way) whose article you certainly didn't even read, and uses unhelpful and unscientific language purely
intended to insult. Not in any way an equal and warranted reaction. The knee-jerk assumption that any criticism of capitalism is somehow pro-Soviet is
pretty "simpleton" too.
I'm hesitant to encourage simple pyrolysis as a primary means of plastics disposal because for many kinds of plastics, insidious and long-lived toxins
like polychlorinated biphenyls and polycyclic aromatics are produced and must then be disposed of with even more care. I've not heard of accelerated
decomposition (usually using bacteria or enzymes) posing this same problem but of course this is probably more expensive and can't be applied to all
of the major plastics at this time. As renewable energy becomes cheaper and more widely available, I'd like to see more focus on UVC, ozone, or
perhaps other chemical catalytic means that could be used to produce a consistent and useful byproduct of hydrocarbons or oxygenated derivatives. Or
anything that avoids building LARGER, more difficult to process molecules as an unintended consequence.
[Edited on 9-19-2021 by Amos]
|
|
|
oceandeep67
Harmless
Posts: 11
Registered: 13-11-2013
Member Is Offline
Mood: curious
|
|
I appreciate people that care about the environment. I am just an average, skilled trade guy located in a 'ghetto' part of the U.S., but old enough
to experience the effects of global warming. I am E.P.A. certified, so know a little about the subject. But just to an average person pyrolysis just
feels like a bad approach. Couldn't plastics be recycled in a way to use as a raw material for (commercial) 3D printers to build condos, or micro
homes for the poor?
|
|
|
Dr.Bob
International Hazard
Posts: 2424
Registered: 26-1-2011
Location: USA - NC
Member Is Offline
Mood: No Mood
|
|
The challenge (IMHO) is not big companies, as they simply supply what the consumer buys. The problem is that many people are lazy. I have seen
people walk by a trash or recycling can ans throw stuff on the ground. Some of my neighbors sort and separate their waste well in to the various
bins, but then I see a few who put clearly non-recyclable things in their blue bin as they are stupid, lazy or uneducated as to what goes where. The
fact that no two places recycle the same things in the same manner does not help. We have towns near here that have entirely different lists of what
is recycled, so you have different rules at home and work and friends houses. And businesses have a hard time convincing employees to do any better.
So I would advocate pushing to have most municipalities try to agree on one system of what is put where and then educate people on it well and if a
certain place does not recycle say polystyrene, they still collect it and dispose of it, just to make the process the same everywhere. And better
yet, put in more municipal incinerators to burn the remaining waste, along with a presort process that tries to remove any remaining items like
metals/steel and glass that are easy to sort. But a well run incinerator with a scrubber is cleaner than most peoples home fireplaces in terms of
pollution, and the power created could then replace electricity made from coal, oil and gas as well. Baltimore has done that for years, along with
many other large cities and much of Europe. If we did that, along with building some new nuclear plants, we could make a serious dent in the CO2
emissions, along with the growing use of wind and solar. But again, the best solution is to stop wasting so much energy. It is much easier, more
practical, cheaper, and more efficient to use less power, push efficiency, turn off lights, etc, and avoid using power than to capture CO2 and remove
it.
|
|
|
Rainwater
Hazard to Others
Posts: 154
Registered: 22-12-2021
Member Is Offline
|
|
| Quote: |
We are supposed to leave politics at the door but |
Amen to that.
I would like to hear about the chemistry involved in refining this waste and converting it into reagents.
We might just solve the worldwide problem by focusing on the the solution.
"You can't do that" - challenge accepted
|
|
|
![[*]](images/xpblue/default_icon.gif){kind=icon}
