Increasing Concerns Regarding Plastic Pollution and Investment in Plastics Recycling To Augment Growth of US Plastic-To-Fuel Market

 

Plastic waste can be transformed into usable gas form for industrial and domestic applications. Plastic waste is generally produced during the manufacturing process of consumer products, especially bottles, containers, wrappers, tubes, etc. There is a wide range of applications for this waste; they include replacement of fuel in internal combustion engines and turbines; production of synthetic gas from waste streams; separation of solids from water using heat in water cooling plants; production of synthetic fuels from oil and gas; and the conversion of solid wastes into various liquid constituents. All these processes have the potential to pollute the environment; hence steps should be taken to minimize their adverse effects.

The US plastic-to-fuel market is expected to be driven by concerns regarding plastic pollution. Flexible plastic is responsible for the largest proportion of debris deaths, primarily due to gastric obstructions, in oceans. Although polymers and plastics are biodegradable, they are unable to decompose on their own. They tend to break down into simple compounds resulting in loss of energy in the decomposition process. Several polymerizing technologies have been developed over the years to overcome the difficulty associated with the decomposition of plastics; among them are thermolysis and pyrolysis. Thermolysis involves heating the waste stream to a temperature higher than its freezing point; the resulting gas, being composed of hydrogen and oxygen, is then exposed to pyrolysis, a process characterized by spontaneous combustion of the waste material.

The hydrocarbon constituents of the waste materials tend to undergo hemolysis more easily than the other two polymerizing technologies. Consequently, both these processes leave behind a residue called hydrocarbon ashes that must be removed before the fuel composition of the final product can be finalized. This, however, leads to another problem. Since hydrocarbons have a lower density than water, removing the hydrocarbon ashes requires more energy than just heating the plastics enough to go to waste.

Increasing investment in plastics recycling is expected to propel growth of the US plastic-to-fuel market. For instance, in February 2021, Eastman Chemical announced plans to build a US$ 250 million polyethylene terephthalate depolymerization plant at its Kingsport, Tennessee, U.S. by the end of 2022.