Polish gasoline from plastic waste in as little as two years

We want the first plant to be built in two years’ time, where fuel components will be produced from plastic waste, Adam Handerek, one of the developers of the improved method of converting plastic into gasoline, tells PAP. This will help manage the m.in. lingering plastic in landfills,” stresses.

Since the 1980s. China was the world’s largest importer of wasteoin – went there even 87 percent. plastic wasteow from Europe. However, at the beginning of January, a ban on importing 24 kinds ofoin garbage, grouped into four categories: household plastics, unsorted paper, roThe camp’s mining and textile industry waste had to be delivered using sludge.

– This raised the problem of what to do with several million tons of wasteoin, whichore will be – moPAP’s Adam Hańderek, an entrepreneur and tworca technology, whichora can pomoc in solving at least part of this problem: it is a technology that allows plastic waste to be processed into liquid fuel fractions.

– It is hoped that in the next twooch years the first industrial plant will be built, in whichorym from recycled plastic will produce fuel components,” assesses Handerek.

The quality of the resulting product meets the parameters of motor fuel standards. – There is therefore no problem using them as a component of theoin these fuels,” he adds.

The process used in the technology developed by Adam Hańderek and his co-authorsoemployeeow has been known for several decades. – The problem was that the method used so far needed to be improved,” explains the talkowca PAP. The method – referred to as thermolysis – is based on a simple principle: heated to a sufficiently high temperature, the plastic becomes similar to the hydrocarbonow, ktore found in gasoline, diesel or heating oil. However, the existing plants can’t run all the time – they need to be stopped frequently for cooling and cleaning.

– Our solution makes it possible to carry out this plastic decomposition process without any losses, for example. sludgeoin whether the appearance of undesirable compoundsoin the chemical in the product. This is the first of its kind in the world,” emphasizes the intervieweeoPAP reporter.

Work on the project to improve depolymerization technology took eight years. – We have made as many as eight rohe pilot plant, in which theoWe tested the roWe have been dissatisfied with different solutions and, in fact, all the time. It was only four years ago that we came up with a solution thatore allowed to bypass all the problems,” says Hańderek.

In the work to improve the processing of plasticow fuels helped roInstitute of Industrial Chemistry. It is from this institution that the patented solution comes, allowing the refinement at a lower cost of the fuel obtained so that it meets the standards of automotive fuels. As the conversation highlightsoPAP’s interviewee, a very important element in the development of the technology is the contribution of the Industrial Institute of Automotive Engineering „PIMOT” – fuels and bioeconomy division. – Product analysisoin the process and supportoCooperation in the field of parameter settingoin the process led to the optimization of technology,” he adds.

According to Adam Handerk, it will be possible to produce approx. 500 thousand. tons of fuels. – This is about 3 percent. of the entire fuel market,” he adds. – I don’t think it’s going to be the case that we’ll be running solely on pure plastic fuel – it will certainly be blended with refinery fuels.

However, as he argues, it’s not about fuel from wasteow replaced refinery fuels on the market. – The raw material needed for our production is a waste that causes a very big problem in Poland and around the world, Hańderek notes. – Plastic waste surrounds us from all sides: it’s in the seas, rivers, oceans. According to data compiled by his company, between 1985 and 2015, 25-30 million tons of waste ended up in Polish landfillsoin plastics.

– Our method is one of the proposals thatore allow us to efficiently process this waste, whichore otherwise end up in landfills, in the oceanoin, or are burned in coal-fired furnaces, contributing to the smog problem – mowi.

– In 2016, we produced 311 million tons of plastics worldwide. If we assume that half of them are recyclable into fuel, more than 150 million tons of fuels can be produced from this, Hańderek calculates. – In Germany, for example, 1 million tons of biofuels are produced annually. So, theoretically, we could serve up to 150 countries the size of Germany with plastic fuel – and that would already make a big roThe heat,” he concludes.

SourceoSource: PAP – Nauka w Polsce, Katarzyna Florencka, fot. Pxhere