A reactor turns ocean waste into fuel

A mobile reactor that converts plastic into diesel fuel could help get rid of huge amounts of plastic rubbish in the oceans - all while powering the vessel carrying it.

A sailboat captain and founder of Clean Oceans International James Holm and a chemist heading Eco-Fuel Technologies firm Swaminathan Ramesh have developed a small mobile reactor to turn hydrocarbon-based plastic waste into diesel fuel.

Around eight million metric tons of plastic waste get into the oceans from land each year, causing damage to the environment and marine life. Holm believes plastic waste can be eliminated before it gets to the oceans by “creating value for it locally on a global basis." 

“This keeps income local, reduces carbon impacts from shipping waste overseas and transporting this amount of petroleum product,” Holm tells PE. 

Heating the plastic in the absence of oxygen allows the reactor to operate continuously at low temperatures, reducing costs and “shrinking the footprint of the whole system,” Ramesh tells PE. The reactors can convert up to 10,000 pounds of plastic per day, resulting in 20-50 million barrels of fuel produced annually.

Previous methods of breaking down plastics and other polymers into fuels have involved expensive and complicated refining processes to separate the fuels into useful products. Ramesh’s technology eliminates any refining steps and creates diesel that can simply be “dropped in,” he says.  

The reactor is compact and lightweight enough to be fitted onto water vessels, converting waste and powering the vessels at the same time. This wouldn’t be possible with conventional methods that don’t use a continuous process, requiring large reactors that have to be fixed in one place.

Having already built two units capable of converting 200 pounds of plastic a day, the team will demonstrate their technology for the government of Santa Cruz, California, who wants to implement the system for plastic waste that cannot be recycled. 

Holm became passioned to take action against ocean waste when he was sailing through the Panama Canal a few years ago and was shocked to see the beach littered with plastic.

The team will present their results in front of the American Chemical Society later this week.