{"id":11071,"date":"2020-05-19T07:58:55","date_gmt":"2020-05-19T04:58:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vastuullisuusuutiset.fi\/?p=11071"},"modified":"2020-05-18T21:09:20","modified_gmt":"2020-05-18T18:09:20","slug":"do-fuels-made-from-plastic-make-eco-sense","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vastuullisuusuutiset.fi\/en\/environmental-news-en\/do-fuels-made-from-plastic-make-eco-sense\/","title":{"rendered":"Do fuels made from plastic make eco sense?"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"smart_content_wrapper\"><p>Yoghurt pots, shampoo bottles, coffee-to-go lids, bubble wrap \u2014 plastic products are all composed of the same building blocks: long carbon chains. Heating them to high temperatures makes the carbon chains crack into a mixture of shorter molecules, ultimately converting them back into crude oil, the resource from which the majority of plastic products were originally made. Varying the process can result in different carbon chain lengths and therefore different carbon-based products, ranging from fuels such as diesel and kerosene to petroleum naphtha, a valuable liquid for the chemical industry. This potential mode of recycling \u2014 where plastic is broken down into its original components \u2014 has been becoming increasingly popular in industry.<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s known as &#8217;chemical recycling,&#8217; as opposed to &#8217;mechanical recycling&#8217; \u2014 the chop-and-wash-method in which plastic is sorted by type, ground into powders, mixed and melted into the very same kind of polymers from which the powders were generated. Several companies have made significant investments in chemical recycling, building facilities to test various ways of making what is allegedly more environmentally-friendly oil. So far, it&#8217;s still in the development and test stage.<\/p>\n<p>In 2018, multinational chemistry giant BASF launched ChemCycling \u2014 a project that aims to generate a so-called pyrolysis oil from plastic waste. The company claims it can be used in the production of new polymers, which it says will save fossil fuel resources. The plastics are chopped down, mixed with a high-boiling solvent and heated in a furnace at over 300 degrees Celcius (572 degrees Fahrenheit). Once the product has been distilled and the solvent filtered off, the company is left with synthetic crude oil, which it claims is &#8221;free of sulfur, lighter than fossil crude oil and with a higher hydrogen content \u2014 therefore of higher quality.&#8221; The product can be refined to make fuels such as gasoline, kerosene and diesel or petrochemical products.<\/p>\n<p>Source: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dw.com\/en\/do-fuels-made-from-plastic-make-eco-sense\/a-51495966?maca=en-rss-en-environment-4553-rdf\">Deutsche Welle<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Yoghurt pots, shampoo bottles, coffee-to-go lids, bubble wrap \u2014 plastic products are all composed of the same building blocks: long carbon chains. Heating them to&#8230;<\/p>","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":10209,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_FSMCFIC_featured_image_caption":"","_FSMCFIC_featured_image_nocaption":null,"_FSMCFIC_featured_image_hide":null,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[31],"tags":[2657,2658],"class_list":["post-11071","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-environmental-news-en","tag-carbon-chains","tag-chemical-recycling","wpcat-31-id"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/vastuullisuusuutiset.fi\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/oil-2881195_1920.jpg?fit=100%2C100&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vastuullisuusuutiset.fi\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11071","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vastuullisuusuutiset.fi\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vastuullisuusuutiset.fi\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vastuullisuusuutiset.fi\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vastuullisuusuutiset.fi\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11071"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/vastuullisuusuutiset.fi\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11071\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11073,"href":"https:\/\/vastuullisuusuutiset.fi\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11071\/revisions\/11073"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vastuullisuusuutiset.fi\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10209"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vastuullisuusuutiset.fi\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11071"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vastuullisuusuutiset.fi\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11071"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vastuullisuusuutiset.fi\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11071"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}