How Can We Turn Plastic Back into Oil?

Every country in the world faces white pollution caused by waste plastics, and landfills and plastic material recycling have been widely used as ways to dispose of waste plastics. However, landfill has a problem as plastics take up to 450 years to naturally degrade (biodegradation), which cannot really solve the plastic pollution problem.

Plastics are generally made from polymers whose raw materials are often petroleum products. In other words, plastics are made from crude oil extracted from the ground.

Is this process reversible? Can we turn plastic back into fuel oil?

The answer is yes.

Many countries and companies have developed technology and equipment to turn plastic back into fuel oil or raw oil, and can even further process the product into new plastic products, which forming a closed-loop recycling process.

From Plastic to Fuel Oil

The conversion of plastics to fuel oil is under the category of "chemical recycling" of waste plastics, which is a better solution for waste plastics and the most economically efficient solution. Therefore, it is also called "advanced recycling".

It is known that about 5% of the oil extracted from the ground is used to manufacture plastic materials, and 90% of this is used to make five types of plastics: PE (polyethylene), PP (polypropylene), PVC (polyvinyl chloride), PET (polyethylene terephthalate) and PS (polystyrene).

In their original state, these plastics consist of a series of organic polymers. After pyrolysis, the plastic polymers can be broken down into smaller carbon chains (small molecules), known as fuel oil. After further refining, plastic fuel oil can be converted into plastic diesel, which is used as a diesel fuel substitute for industrial heating, vehicles and generators, etc. It can also be used as a chemical raw material oil, or further processed into naphtha for making new plastics or synthetic resins.

Niutech: Turn Plastic Wastes into Oil

Diesel is generally made from waste plastics by pyrolysis, i.e., according to the thermal instability of plastics and other organic materials, the large organic molecules are transformed into gaseous, liquid and solid components with small relative molecular mass in an oxygen-free environment, of which the liquid output is "pyrolysis oil", which can be made into diesel fuel after further processing.

The industrial continuous waste plastic pyrolysis production line independently developed by Niutech, produces fuel oil and NCG, etc. through more thorough decomposition of single or mixed plastics such as PP, PE, PS, etc., and realizes the transformation from waste plastic to oil under the premise of safe, environmental protection and continuous and stable operation.

This pyrolysis technology and equipment can achieve the pyrolysis rate >99% and maximize the resource recovery and recycling.

The use of pyrolysis technology to dispose of waste plastics has become a mainstream harmless treatment and resource utilization technology for organic waste at home and abroad with its low cost, high degree of resourcefulness and good environmental benefits.

Turning waste plastics back into oil, Niutech pyrolysis solutions have been successfully applied in many projects in many countries. The project in Denmark has received investment and recognition from global chemical giant BASF. It converts waste plastics from domestic waste into pyrolysis oil, with a processing for synthetic resins and new plastic products. A domestic waste recycling base project in the US has also adopted the technology and equipment of Niutech, which not only solves the local "white pollution" problem, but achieves good economic benefits.

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