Directory: Blest Machine recycles plastic back into oil

http://www.energeticforum.com/renewable-energy/7040-how-turn-plastic-waste-into-diesel-fuel-cheaply.html

 

 

"Blest Machine" by inventor, Akinori Ito. It converts certain plastics into oil, and it is presently commercially available in sizes ranging from a batch processing, tabletop version for home or experimental use; to larger continuous feed versions for small industrial use.

Basically, you can put plastic items, as they are, into the hopper, and a few minutes later you have the oil from which the plastics were made in the first place.

To operate, you put your plastic trash in a hopper on the machine, then screw on a lid. The temperature inside rises, slowly melting the plastic, which becomes a liquid and then a gas. The key to the process is a regulated electric heater that heats the plastic enough to melt but never to the point where it burns, thus avoiding any CO2 fumes. As the plastic boils, the gaseous fumes are vented into a water bubbler, which cools the gas, resulting in oil floating to the top of the water, due to the natural tendency for water and oil to separate.

Because it doesn't burn the feedstock, the device is safe to use at home.

The resulting oil can be burned as it is, being a crude gas that can fuel things like generators or stoves. Or it can be processed further into gasoline, diesel, or kerosene. There are manyfuel efficiency technologies emerging that have a much wider tolerance for the fuel feedstock, while burning the fuel much more efficiently with greatly diminished emissions. It's conceivable that this home plastic-to-oil gadget could enable a person to run their vehicle on plastic they used to throw away. Microproduction of oil – a fuel version of distributed power – becomes a real possibility.

Two pounds of plastic fed to the machine gets you a quart of oil. In metric, one kilogram of plastic produces almost one liter of oil. To convert that amount takes about 1 kilowatt-hour of electricity, which is approximately ¥20 or 20 cents worth.

Blest claims that if the proper materials are fed into the machine (i.e., polyethylene, polystyrene and polypropylene — PP, PE, PS plastics [numbers 2-4]), there is no toxic substance produced, and any residue can be disposed of with regular burnable garbage. PET bottles (number 1) should not be run through their machine. They also explain that while methane, ethane, propane and butane gasses are released in the process, the machine is equipped with an off-gas filter that disintegrates these gases into water and carbon. [1]

One of the issues that will be faced with this technology is the question of what happens to all of the impurities and potentially toxic compounds, like paint, that are left behind when the machine is done turning the plastic into oil. These would have gone into the landfill anyway, but perhaps care could be taken to dispose of them in some other way that prevents the release of the toxins into the environment, by transforming them into something else.

The biggest down-side to the Blest technology is its price. As of November 30, 2010, the improved home plastic-to-oil machine is now ¥106,000 (around US$12,700) without tax. [2] At that price, it is not likely to pay for itself, but early technologies are rarely a break-even proposition. Early adopters, willing to pay more to help the pioneering technology get a foothold in the market, can get social mileage from the good feeling to being part of the solution for what ails our civilization.

As of April, 2009, the company had 60 machines running at farms, fisheries and small factories in Japan and several abroad. [3]

The machine can be transported by plane, and Ito routinely travels around giving demonstrations and educational presentations with the device.

"To make a machine that anyone can use is my dream. The home is the oil field of the future." —Akinori Ito, CEO of Blest.