Thermo-depolymerization creates valuable crude oil and eliminates polluting waste.
The process of thermal depolymerization (TDP) can produce a material equivalent to light crude oil while simultaneously eliminating large amounts of waste. TDP mimics, in an accelerated form, the geological processes used by Mother Nature to generate oil. By applying high temperatures and pressures to materials rich in organic materials, carbohydrates or hydrocarbons, materials are taken apart on a molecular level, forming petroleum hydrocarbons. Using TDP, 100 pounds of plastic waste can be transformed into 70 pounds of oil, 16 pounds of gas, 6 pounds of carbon solids and 8 pounds of water. Even raw sewage can be transformed into oil, with 100 pounds of municipal liquid waste yielding 26 pounds of oil and 9 pounds of gas.
Instructions
1. Prepare the material. TDP reactors can handle many different kinds of waste, but it must be prepared accordingly. Plastics may need to be shredded or pelletized, for example, while waste from a meat processing plant must be mixed into a slurry. The timing of the process must be adjusted for different materials, too, as some types of waste need to spend more or less time in the different chambers and reactor stages.
2. Apply heat and pressure. In nature, oil is created under the enormous temperatures and pressures generated by geological phenomena. In a TDP plant, a pressure chamber and an oven/reactor are required in order to break down long polymer chains into their most elemental components. About 500 degrees Fahrenheit and pressures of about 600 pounds per inch will do the trick for most organic materials.
3. Depressurize. For some waste types, the presence of excess water may be a problem. For example, sewage is 60 percent water. Its extraction via evaporation would have a high energy cost, but by depressurizing it when it is at a high temperature, it can be extracted easily. Because the extracted water is still very hot, it can feed back into the previous stage of the process in order to heat the next batch of waste.
4. Heat some more. After water has been extracted from the mix, it must be further heated until it reaches 900 degrees Fahrenheit to further break apart long molecular chains. The high temperature will also separate the different components of the soup and vertical distillation columns can be used to extract the separate outputs. Gases will raise to the top of the column, light oils will go to the the upper middle, heavier oils to the middle, water will remain below, and powdered carbon---used to manufacture tires, filters, and printer toners---will go to the bottom.
