Saturday, May 15, 2021

finally a way to recycle plastic?

 https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20210510-how-to-recycle-any-plastic

 

Once this high-pressure system is depressurised and the waste exits the reactors, the majority of liquid flashes off as vapour. This vapour is cooled in a distillation column and the condensed liquids are separated on a boiling range to produce four hydrocarbon liquids and oils: naphtha, distillate gas oil, heavy gas oil and heavy wax residue, akin to bitumen. These products are then shipped to the petrochemical industry.

As with other feedstock techniques, there is no down-cycling as the polymer bonds can be formed anew, meaning the plastics can be infinitely recycled. With a conversion rate of more than 99%, nearly all the plastic turns into a useful product.

 

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FINALLY!  This sounds like it uses a lot of energy, but that's better than having the world drown in plastic.

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