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Science/Tech See other Science/Tech Articles Title: Plastics-to-fuel converter for the home - Plastic bags help you carry your groceries home, they make excellent liners for smaller-sized trash cans, and now they can help you to heat your home. A Japanese inventor has found a way to convert plastic grocery bags, bottles and caps into usable petroleum. Plastic bags are, of course, made from petroleum to begin with, but it is not the same kind of petroleum that is used in fuel. In order to turn home waste into home power the machine heats up the waste plastic and traps the vapors created in a system of pipes and water chambers. Finally, the machine condenses the vapors into crude oil, that can be used for heating on the home level. New invention can turn your plastic bags into fuel at home Enlarge This is not the first device of this kind. A large power plant which is located just outside of Washington, D.C., is currently testing a similar process for use on the community level. This is simply the first device of this kind that is meant for use on a single-home scale. The machines conversion process can turn two pounds of plastic into one quart of oil, using only one kilowatt-hour of energy. The crude oil produced can then either be used in a power generator or be further refined into gasoline, though one would need a second machine to complete the refining process and create gasoline. New invention can turn your plastic bags into fuel at home Enlarge Many home users will be deterred by the initial cost, since the machine currently runs about $10,000. The developer hopes that the cost will be reduced as the demand for the device increases. The device is named the carbon-negative system and it is being sold by the Blest Corporation. More information: www.blest.c … english.html © 2010 PhysOrg.com Comments: * GSwift7 - This sounds really stupid. Take a look at this breakdown: Their web site says that the machine can convert 1kg/time (which I assume means 1kg/hr, since the other machines on the page are in kg/hr). That equates to about 2.2 lbs of plastic per hour. That should yield (optimally) .275 gal/hr. Heating oil is really high now ($3.59/gallon), so the machine makes $0.98725 per hour. Subtract $0.11 per kilowatt in electricity, makes $0.88/hr (rounded). To pay for a $10k machine at that rate would take 11,364 hours (1.3 years of continuous operation) and 25,000 lbs of plastic, and that's just get out of negative cost. That is assuming the machine produces high $ oil, but I think it needs further refining to get home heating quality oil like the type I priced above. That would make the break even numbers even longer, but I don't have the exact figures for that. Look up Thermal depolymerization on wiki for more info. o report abuse * GSwift7 - No, that's actually not a problem in this case. It appears that as long as you feed in clean feedstock of the right types, you should only get a few gasses (16%), which the machine burns with a built-in burner, oil (70%), water (8%) and a little bit of carbon soot (about 5% I think). It may not be economical, but it actually isn't bad as far as environmental outcome. I would worry about people having this thing in their home though. I am having visions of flames and fire trucks and people crying. Most people can't even handle changing the air filters in their AC/Heating returns. Imagine asking them to maintain a machine like this. Not a good idea. Some day soon (sooner than you think), we'll be using GM-bacteria to do this job at room temperature with very high-efficiency. Until we have that kind of biological engineering expertise, we should explore this approach.
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