United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP)

Swaminathan Ramesh, a chemist from India is launching a technology Mobile Reactor which can transform garbage into diesel in California.

Developed by President, EcoFuel Technologies in Michigan and Ramesh from Indian Institute of Science (IISc), this technology can transform plastic waste into fuel. It has great hopes to deal with the issue of plastic pollution on ocean and land, and the shortage of fuel on planet.

In association with James Holm, who is the founder of a non-profit company, Clean Oceans International in Santa Cruz, CA, Ramesh’s company has developed the PTF units. He added, “The aim is to avoid plastic waste in the world by creating a market.”

Their results are presented on April 3 by the researchers at 253rd National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society (ACS), San Francisco.

How Mobile Reactor to Convert Garbage into Diesel

Plastic waste is a serious threat to the beaches and aquatic life. The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) reports that around 8 million tons of plastic is dumped into the ocean every year. It means a whole garbage truck full of plastic waste is dumped into the ocean every single minute.

He developed a mobile reactor to transform all the waste plastics into fuel which will soon be introduced in a demo project in California.

Swaminathan Ramesh added, “With the help of our Plastic to Fuel (PTF) converter, we may hope to sort out the plastic pollution problem on the ocean and land”.

According to UNEP, by 2050, the plastic dumped into the oceans would weigh more than all fish living in the marine world”. The technology “Pyrolysis” is used to break the plastic waste down to obtain the fuel based on hydrocarbon for years. But it needs expensive refining and complex steps so that the fuel can be useable. The catalytic thermal depolymerisation technology is designed to convert up to 100 to 10000 pounds of plastic waste every day.

Source:- IndiaTimes And BCCL