A British company tries to use waste plastics to produce petrochemicals

[Reuters, China] A company called Recycling Technologies in Swindon, England, recently said that it is trying to use waste plastic wrap, polyester clothing materials, carpets and electronic products to produce fuel oil and other petrochemical products. The company, together with the University of Warwick, designed a device that occupies an area equivalent to a tennis court. Using the thermal cracking principle similar to crude oil refining, the petrochemical waste was heat-treated and its steam was condensed into 3 different types at different temperatures. Petrochemicals: The top is a light yellow light fuel oil that can be sold to petrochemical companies; the middle is a heavier, wax-like product that can be used as a boat fuel; the bottom is a brown wax, Can be used to produce shoe polish and cosmetics.

It is currently testing the method and can process an average of 2.4 tons of waste plastic per day. According to the company, the installation cost of the unit is 3 million pounds (about 3.88 million U.S. dollars), and the annual operating cost is 500,000 pounds. It is estimated that it will receive 1.7 million pounds of revenue each year. The payback period is 2 to 2.5 years. . The project has the support of the British government and 100 private investors and plans to build a new machine with a capacity of about 700 tons per year in Scotland next year, which can produce about 5,000 tons of petrochemical products. According to the Allen MacArthur Foundation’s research, only about 10% of waste plastic products are currently recyclable, and the rest are burned, landfilled or dumped into the ocean. It is expected that the weight of waste plastic products dumped into the ocean by 2050 will exceed the weight One of the fish.