When it comes to 3D printing, the sky is the limit. As 3D printing technology continues to advance, applications can be as far reaching as airplane and automobile parts to medical devices and even anatomically correct, biocompatible models. Although 3D printing technology is developing at a rapid pace, the technology itself is not new. It emerged in the 1980s as a means of creating rapid prototypes. In recent years the applications for 3D printed models have evolved with the available hardware, software, and printable materials. Evolving technology, paired with the creative and innovative minds of scientists, engineers, and physicians, has been the launching pad for developments within 3D printing technology specific to healthcare. One way 3D printing technology is poised to create better patient outcomes is in creating an anatomically and patient-specific models to aid in surgery and medical procedures. With the capability to 3D ...
What do you do with your plastic grocery bags? There are several options: reuse, recycle, or … convert back to diesel and fuel your car. A study by the Sustainable Technology Center at the University of Illinois analyzed oil products obtained from grocery bags by pyrolysis, or thermal decomposition in the absence of oxygen. Pyrolysis is derived from Greek pyro (fire) and lysis (separation). An article in Fuel Processing Technology explains:
Pyrolysis of HDPE waste grocery bags followed by distillation resulted in a liquid hydrocarbon mixture with average structure consisting of saturated aliphatic paraffinic hydrogens (96.8%), aliphatic olefinic hydrogens (2.6%) and aromatic hydrogens (0.6%) that corresponded to the boiling range of conventional petroleum diesel fuel […] Comparison of the fuel properties to the petrodiesel fuel standards ASTM D975 and EN 590 revealed that the synthetic product was within all specifications after addition of antioxidants with the exception of density (802 kg/m3). Notably, the derived cetane number (73.4) and lubricity (198 microns, 60 °C, ASTM D6890) represented significant enhancements over those of conventional petroleum diesel fuel.
The scientists characterized the obtained hydrocarbon mixture using analytical methods of gas chromatography–mass spectroscopy (GC-MS), infrared (IR) and nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopies, as well as size exclusion chromatography, and did not detect any oxygenated compounds. They concluded that pyrolysis of waste plastic is suitable to produce components for conventional petroleum diesel fuel.
Commercial Scale
Meanwhile, pyrolysis already is being used to produce crude oil from mixed plastic waste by several companies, and now it is geared to scale up with the formation of a new Plastics-to-Oil Technologies Alliance, dedicated to converting non-recycled used plastics into crude oil and other petroleum-based products on a commercial scale. The Plastics-to-Oil Alliance group was formed by the Plastics Division of the American Chemistry Council in January 2014. The group membership is open to companies “that develop and implement technologies to convert non-recycled plastics into petroleum and petroleum based products.” The founding members of the group are:
- Renewable Energy Solutions, or RES Polyflow, an Ohio company focusing on the design, manufacture and marketing of equipment that converts mixed polymer waste into fuels. Their technology transforms up to 60 tons of lightly sorted, unwashed, mixed plastic waste per day into pyrolysis gasoline — pygas — an equivalent of crude oil. The production byproducts are inert char and a light gas, which can be used as a source of fuel for the production. The process even allows the recovery of scrap metal from used consumer products.
- Agilyx is an alternative energy company with a production facility in Oregon. The company’s technology includes indirect heating of waste plastic to convert it into gas, which is cooled and condensed into crude oil. Producing approximately a gallon of oil from 10 pounds of plastic, the company has already produced and sold 350,000 gallons of oil.
- Cynar Plc, a U.K. company, is using its “End of Life Plastic to Diesel” process based on pyrolysis and distillation to convert waste plastics into synthetic fuels that are cleaner, have lower sulfur content, and a higher cetane number than diesel. Cynar has an operating plant in Ireland and plans to build 10 more plants in Europe.
All three companies already hold, or have applied for patents covering their technological specifics. The new Alliance complements the existing programs of the American Chemistry Council to reduce, reuse, recycle, and recover plastics, producing oil with a smaller carbon footprint than traditional forms of crude oil extraction.
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