Team

Clara Salina

09:49, Jul 24, 2017

Thanks a lot Jocelyn, my contribution comes from common sense, as I wrote too.
I'm not selling or licensing any idea, I'm simply proposing to experts to discuss about it.
Why do we need to build new plants for plastic?
Let's add to the existing ones what is missing to put plastic chemical derivates into the loop. So, following what you are suggesting I'll add the cracking unit to my script.

Of course, I'm perfectly aware that industry won't look positively what I propose. Indeed I believe in strictly laws. I don't think we can save out oceans only with industry good will. We don't have enough time left.
My other proposal Barcode v/s Plastic Waste is going in the same direction.
We need force of law, awareness and education are not enough.

Plastic waste is spread everywhere on the planet, many nations don't have any economical power to install plastic into oil plants or machines, but they probably have refineries on their territories. Therefore, I'm suggesting to use them and transform plastic in oil with a, probably, more affordable cost.

Team

Brian Bauer

23:28, Jul 24, 2017

Jocelyn Doucet Thank you for your astute advise on the technical challenges related to this idea. I just wanted to provide a few comments that might partially mitigate the economic challenges that you address. Chile has a fairly energy intensive economy and thus a significant per capita demand for hydrocarbon resources. And Chile has virtually no indigenous hydrocarbon resources-it is heavily reliant on expensive and sometimes dubious foreign energy imports. But, Chile also has some of the world's best DNI making it one of the world's best places to harvest low cost, highly reliable solar energy. Recently there has been a massive increase in large scale solar projects in Chile.

To me (not an expert in this area), it sounds like the breaking down of polymer chains is a fairly energy intensive process. That said, could solar energy be a cost effective energy source to break down the polymers? Also, in the developed world it can be very expensive to collect, sort and transport plastics. But in developing economies (outside of Chile but in the region) informal recycling networks can collect massive volumes of plastic for low costs.

Considering all the unique factors that I address for Chile, do you think these might meaningfully make Clara's idea more economically viable (in the context of Chile)? Not at all challenging your expertise (I am not an expert in this area) but curious to hear your thoughts. Cheers, Brian

Team

JP De Mussy

02:00, Jul 25, 2017

Brian Bauer I found your comment very relevant and of course worth the reflection. Dreaming small or dreaming big takes the same energy so why not dream big. It makes sense to look deep into how Solar Energy can actually make things possible in certain places of the world and Chile is certainly one such place where Solar is King.
Clara Salina keep pushing for your clever common sense. Cheers. JP

Team

Jocelyn Doucet

04:59, Jul 25, 2017

I love common sense and your idea makes certainly alot of sense! Changing regulation is essential because it currently maintains and supports the status quo. I am totally with you there.

Team

Jocelyn Doucet

Edited on 05:20, Jul 25, 2017

Thanks,

My point was that although i get the concept, it's just not how it works, you can't just distillate the plastics. Distillation is a unit operation that separates compounds based on their difference in boiling points and vapor pressures. If you want to vaporize the polymers to separate them, you would have to heat them up to a temperature so they become vaporized and that would either burn them (if presence of oxygen) or pyrolyze them (in absence of oxygen). We tried this in the lab and it just cracks the polymers when you heat them too high in temperature.

The real approach to this is to first pyrolyze or crack the polymers and then distillate the residue product. We are mainly saying the same thing, but from a practical chemical engineering way, there are in fact two steps in what she is proposing: a cracking and a distillation.

Regarding the energy, you are absolutely right when you say that the process of breaking down polymer chains requires energy. I don't know what "intensive" means but it is mainly a thermodynamic property. The breakdown energy (or depolymerization enthalpy) that we measure in our process is around 0.4-0.7 kWh/kg of material, which would be seen as relatively light. The reaction itself is what we call "endothermic", meaning that the total energy value of the products are higher than the internal energy of the polymers before being broke down. Therefore there must be some energy added to the system so it can happen.

What most people do usually is that they burn fuel to provide that energy through the form of "heat" and therefore additional emissions are released as a result of burning this fuel to recover product. This is what you see mostly in "catalytic crackers" or fluidized bed gasifications/pyrolysis process. The only sustainable way to my opinion to do this is to rely on alternative sources of energy like solar, windmill or other renewable forms of energy.

This is really similar to what the Nature does by relying on solar energy (an almost say infinite source of energy) to power up photosynthesis which takes carbon dioxide and convert it into structured products like sugars or other oligomers. There is an energy cost to be ressource efficient, this is what we learn from Nature and there is no way out, it's thermodynamics! But what we also learn from this is that in order to be "winning" at this game without choking with emissions is that we need energy sources that are not releasing additional emissions.

The solution I am proposing with Pyrowave, (sorry for the self publicity here) is following that line of thought whereby we use electrical energy to power up a microwave unit and do the cracking conversion of polymer into monomers. In that way, you can take decarbonated source of energy and take polymers in end of life to decompose them into building blocks (monomers) to be used again in other structures. Similarly, any technology that would be able to close the loop by relying on renewable sources of energy would fall under the same category and this is what we need to focus on. Therefore using solar energy in Chile would be extraordinary to power up this technology.

Team

Clara Salina

07:33, Jul 25, 2017

Thanks a lot JP. I'm very happy to read I could establish the interesting conversation.
Cheers, Clara

Team

Brian Bauer

14:47, Jul 27, 2017

Jocelyn Doucet Thanks a lot for all of your astute technical analysis and input.

I just read of a major policy change that will likely have huge impacts on plastic recycling. China has formally announced it wants to stop taking in recycled plastics from developed nations. My guess is this will have major impacts on how we process plastic. Perhaps it will create policy tailwinds to process plastic waste on a more local level, rather than sending it to China. Ultimately, this could increase feedstock and develop economies of scale for an idea like we are discussing, turning plastic into fuel.

I am curious about how well the plastic has to be sorted to turn it into fuel? Do you work with sorted plastic all of the same polymer or can you process unsorted plastic types into fuels. I work with a company that recycles plastics in developing nations and we focus on the most valuable types of plastics. It would be amazing if all types of plastic could be monetized so they do not escape the economy and punish the environment. So really curious to hear your view on how well the plastic has to be sorted to turn it into fuel. Cheers, Brian

Team

Brian Bauer

14:59, Jul 27, 2017

Hi Jocelyn, Sorry, I just read over your proposal and it answered most of the questions I asked above. Amazing work you are doing. I wish you the best of luck in making it come to life on a large scale.

Here is that article I was referring to about China stoping plastic imports. From what I understand about your business model this could create policies that favour your idea.
http://www.triplepundit.com/2017/07/china-will-no-longer-accept-worlds-garbage/

Team

Jose Luis

08:02, Dec 04, 2017

Hello Jocelyn,

I visited your website. Thank you very much for the work you are doing to reconstitute mixed plastic waste into their building blocks to make virgin-like plastics.

The idea that Clara is proposing to have oil refineries recycle plastic waste is, in my view, to Pyrowave's advantage.

By having commingled plastic waste shipped to oil refineries, Pyrowave will help solve the problem of costs to haul, store, sort and process them.

Pyrowave can place small, modular units directly onsite at recycling facilities and at producers of plastic waste as well as at oil refineries.

If not for all of Pyrowave's process, for the part that oil refineries can not do themselves.

The idea is worth taking up in conversations with oil refineries and the petrochemical industry.

This is a brilliant, effective and efficient idea and use of supply chains and resources already demonstrated by purpose-built recycling centres at both Shepperton Film Studios and Pinewood Film Studios in the UK that ensure reduced transportation of recovered materials, a maximum amount of material sent for recycling, and zero waste sent to landfill.

Having oil refineries in countries with no plastic recycling capabilities or infrastructure will be to their benefit and help them become part of the solution.

For a related article on solutions to plastic pollution and who pays for recycling, please read more at:
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/having-plastic-producers-petrochemical-industry-pay-gutierrez-garcia/